The Spirit Room
by Gypsy Silverleaf
Summary: Harry has just come home from the Triwizard Tournament and his life is falling apart, and gets worse when three figures show up on Privet Drive. (implications of rape, incest)
1. All You Wanted

            The strangeness of the three men dressed in billowing black robes and striding briskly along could be rivaled only by three figures who had traversed the same road almost fourteen years before.  That autumn night, darker than any other, had been rather somber and hushed.  This summer afternoon, however – with the sunlight unable to part the clouds and settling on the quiet neighborhood in an odd ochre white – was not as subdued.

            "We should not be here," said one of the men gruffly.  He involuntarily quickened his step, reluctantly following the other two men walking ahead of him.  He scowled and impatiently shoved his shoulder-length dark hair out of his eyes.

            All three men wore angry faces and were arguing heatedly in low voices as they hurried down the street, oblivious to the very Mugglish world around them.

            "The _boy_ is here," replied another, just as coldly.  He glared at the sign they passed reading _Privet Drive._  "We were told . . . to collect him."

            "_He_ didn't tell us to come."

            "If you're so worried about your sorry ass, you are more than welcome to leave."

            "You were not so quick to believe my young accomplice a few days ago."

            "And you do not seem so apt to believe him now," snapped the second man, scowling as well from beneath his own dark hair, "as you did a few days ago."

            "Won't _he_ be surprised," came the bitter but relenting sneer.

            "Wands out," said the third man quietly, drawing his own from his robes.  He ran a hand through his light hair, ruffling it slightly, and glanced meaningfully at the other two men glaring daggers at each other.

            The second man growled and they nearly walked by the house.

            All three of them stared darkly up at the moderately sized two-story house shaped oddly like a box.  Their eyes trickled disdainfully across the tidy front yard, complete with a prudishly trimmed lawn, pink and yellow flowers nestled in neat window boxes, and carefully carved bushes beneath them.  A few garden gnomes with pointed red and blue hats were even fastidiously, and rather strategically, placed here and there upon the grass.

            The words "earth," "hell," and "on" – not particularly in that order – formed in their minds at the same time and the three touched the tips of the wands ceremoniously to their throats.  They smiled grimly as they hid their wands from sight again, knowing they merely needed to be able to get to them quickly; it was well known no one in this house had enough magical blood running through their veins to hurt one of them, much less all three, but as for brute strength . . .

            Even though they one of the most ominous groups to ever step onto Privet Drive, they marched calmly up the path to the doorstep of number Four.  Muffled yells and loud clamoring could be heard resonating from within the house.  The second dark-haired man and the lighter-haired one took their predetermined places, standing on either side of the doorframe.  The first man stood just outside the space between them, folding his arms and cape across his chest, creating and finishing a defensive alcove around the entryway.

            The third man raised a slightly scarred hand and the sleeve of his cloak slipped to his elbow, revealing more self-inflicted wounds.  His companions didn't seem to notice them, or – more likely – did not care.  He knocked on the door three times.

            _Boom.  Boom.  Boom_.

            The house went deadly silent and then there was nothing.  Then –

            An extremely ruffled woman with wavy, graying blond hair threw the door open.  Her red face – obviously so from screaming – accentuated her too-soon wrinkles and became instantly pale as her blue-green orbs frightfully took in their set expressions and menacing eyes.  The tawny man heard her heart skip a beat and he smiled.

            "Petunia Evans," the third man snarled, glowering at her spitefully.  "How nice pleasant to see you again."

            "Dursley," the woman automatically answered, swallowing nervously.

            "You would still be an Evans had you not let that scoundrel of a man," spat the second man in a very low, very knowing, very arctic voice, "take you and force you to have his son.  You could have easily rid yourself of him and the bastard child.  Quite painlessly, in fact, but your will was never very strong . . . was it?"

            Petunia Dursley's widening eyes were a whirlpool of recognition, anger, and confusion.  She glanced at his forbidding black cloaks then looked back to his face, trying to see him, and narrowed her eyes.  "Do I know you?" she hissed suspiciously.

            "Petunia, who the hell are you – "  The violet-flushed, overtly large man who had just pushed his wife mostly out of the way stopped dead.  His mouth dropped open as the man who had spoken to Petunia pulled out his wand and pointed it at Vernon Dursley's heart.  Petunia whimpered as she stared at the three dark wizards, each with their wands drawn now.

            "We are here for the boy who no longer lives.  We are here . . . for Harry Potter."

~

            Being a teenager and a wizard in the Dursley household, young Harry Potter was quickly beginning to realize, was not an easy task.  He was deprived of his schoolwork, dipping headlong into puberty, and failing miserably to recover from the events of the last week of school.  The Dursleys, in addition, seemed especially vindictive this summer, dappling in abuse he had not been a victim of since he was ten years old.

            Uncle Vernon had at first simply dug his nails – talons, really – deep into Harry's shoulders and boxed him once 'round the ears in the car as they left King's Cross that past July first.  The punishment had been for spending too much quality time with "those red-headed louts."

            Of course, Uncle Vernon was talking about his best friend Ron Weasley's family.  Harry had spent at least twenty minutes saying good-bye to them and his other best friend, Hermione Granger, whilst a teary Mrs. Weasley hugged him and a somber Mr. Weasley kept a wary eye on his uncle – standing, obviously very angry, at the entrance to the station – the entire time.

            "Be careful, Harry," Mr. Weasley had told him in a quiet voice, tightening his grip on Harry's shoulder in a very protective manner as he shared a glare with Mr. Dursley.  "You write me if you need anything."

            Harry figured the disciplinary action inflicted on him was payback – revenge for the summer before, when Dudley's tongue had grown at least four feet due to Fred and George Weasley's Ton Tongue Toffees (thus, somewhat deserved).  The whole situation had been a fiasco and while hilariously funny to reflect upon, Harry had been secretly very glad he had not been there for the aftermath.

            Next to the clawing of his shoulders and arms, and sort of hard smacking, that ensued into the night, Uncle Vernon had told Harry in so many words he was to dispose of Hedwig or he would do it for him.  Hedwig was now resting comfortably with the Grangers' – his letter to Hermione simply stating, _Dudley's bugging Hedwig, please house her for a while_.

            Hedwig's food and cage were with Hermione, too.  The Dursleys had happily shipped her things to a Muggle address, mainly because it _was_ Muggle and Harry could no longer support her himself.  Every trace of Hedwig had been swept away from the house – the familiar feathers, pellets, and rat-tails were all missing from his bedroom floor.  Even the impromptu perch he'd fashioned out of sticks from the nearby woods the year before was gone, giving him a very alien feeling every time he looked sadly around his prison cell.

            It was probably, thought Harry rather morosely, standing in the Granger kitchen (which, he had been informed, was "nice and airy, and an area Crookshanks never enters because my mother nearly chopped off his tail, thinking it was a rather large and bushy carrot").

            Hedwig, ever the bird for comfort and luxury, as she was surely getting in the Granger house, had not come back in well over a fortnight.  And she would almost certainly not return until his birthday, that coming Sunday.

            Harry forced himself to think it was all for the better, because then nothing would happen to her.  But not having communication with his friends – save for their letters, which were few and far between; Ron was helping his dad at the Ministry of Magic, his godfather Sirius was in hiding, Hagrid was away, and Hermione was always busy with work – was more than a little uncomfortable.

            Having rid him of this means of escape, more or less cutting him completely off from the wizarding word, the Dursleys were quite content to treat Harry however they pleased – especially Mr. Dursley.

            "Well, Mr. Potter," Uncle Vernon had sneered the third night of holidays while they were alone in the living room, sounding eerily like the Potions Master of Hogwarts, a grimy professor by the name Severus Snape.  His fat pudgy face had been cast with dark shadows from the firelight and his mustache had looked particularly sinister.  "It seems I have you all summer to bend to my will."

            Harry always shivered at the memory of that night.  That seemingly small threat had many hidden, yet not so concealed (as one might initially think), meanings.

            Between the ages of five and ten, Harry's physical contact with his family had been far from distant.  Aunt Petunia often pinched him into submission, forcing him to do more housework so she or Dursley wouldn't have to – or slapped him clear across the face or smacked the back of his head to get him to move.  Dudley, of course, hit and kicked his _favourite_ cousin as much as possible, and no matter how many times Harry was able to get away, their confrontations were two fold that.

            This sort of treatment was easily tolerated, thought, compared to Uncle Vernon's punishments and thrashings.  Only verbal punishments – _"Stupid boy!  Just likely your bloody bastard father!"_ and a few hard smacks (most of which brought him tumbling to the ground with a surprised "oof!" or cry) – were done in public, though, and weren't so bad.  Harry expected it, usually thought he deserved it.  Just as he thought – _knew_ – he deserved his little, dusty, spider-infected cupboard under the stairs.

            In private, while Aunt Petunia went socializing or shopping, dragging Dudley around like some miniature idol needing to be worshipped, the punishments dealt out to Harry were very different.

            At any given moment, whether he was quietly reading a book at the dining room table, staring blankly at a terrible television program, or scrubbing the kitchen floor, Harry could be picked up by the scruff of the neck and thrown halfway across the room.  Every moment he was alone in the house with Uncle Vernon, he was fearful of when it would happen.

            Oh, it didn't happen very often, of course; Uncle Vernon made it perfectly clear he preferred the filthiest privy in York to his disgusting nephew.  But when it did, Harry's hatred of his uncle flared before his eyes like boiling magma and all he could concentrate on was forgetting what was happening to his body – his uncle usually avoided his face – and numbing himself of the pain.

            Harry could now account his never truly registering the cuts and bruises and mental scars until they were mere blemishes and yellow-coloured spots to his wizarding powers, which he had come to learn had saved him – sort of – on numerous other occasions, all before he started at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  He only knew at the time that he could push it, all of it, away and reflected upon it later as a blurry nightmare that didn't mean anything, or, at least, much.

            Something Harry could not suppress, though, was Uncle Vernon watching him in the shower from about eight years old and on.  He'd been stepping out of the shower one morning and had pulled a towel from the rack when he looked up.  His uncle was sitting in the vanity chair and looking directly at him.  Harry had jumped back behind the shower door with a yelp, more surprised than alarmed, and Vernon had simply left after slowly returning the chair to its rightful location.  By the time this had happened a few more times over the course of that month, Harry didn't bathe for a week.

            Unknowing of his embarrassment, and half-wild thoughts Uncle Vernon was in there because he needed to use the shower (he often did after Harry escaped the confines of the bathroom), Aunt Petunia had threatened seriously to crack his head open with the frying pan if he didn't wash his hair.  After that – with a fleeting glance at the frying pan she was brandishing, sizzling with bacon and spitting with grease – Harry had bathed whenever his uncle wasn't in the house or kept a towel with him when he was, and always showered quickly.

            It hadn't been until a night earlier in his fourth year, the year just finished, that he had realized what this actually meant.  Moaning Myrtle, a sorrowful little ghost who sobbed almost daily in one of the girl's bathrooms at Hogwarts, had admitted something to Harry earlier that year in the prefects' bathroom.  He'd been in the pool-like tub, pondering over the Triwizard Tournament's second task when she suddenly appeared.  She said she'd been watching him for a while, in secret, and had watched others, including Cedric Diggory – obviously for some sick, personal enjoyment.

            He'd nearly vomited later that night when he came to the sudden conclusion – Harry realized he had never let himself believe it – Uncle Vernon had been doing the same thing.  He shuddered, sickened, at the comprehension and at the current situation.

            Aunt Petunia had taken a job as a secretary two to three days a week at Allen Overy to get out of the house the minute summer holidays started.  Harry sympathized with her to some degree – Dudley's Smeltings career and general life had not taught him the proper ways to treat women and was often found kicking her or yelling obscenities at her.  Vernon wasn't much different, if not ten times as worse, but also hid what he did behind a bedroom door.

            Dudley, on the days she was absent from the house, went to his friends' houses to vegetate in front of the television with reckless abandon, leaving Harry alone.  Sort of.  In theory.  Upon agreeing "reluctantly" to his wife's new job, Vernon had announced he would now be staying home to do work that didn't need to be done at the office – and to keep an eye on _him_.

            He mainly did leave Harry alone, but had the strange knack of appearing at odd times in the kitchen or living room, proudly sharpening his tick yellow nails into wicked points.  He would smirk, leering under his black mustache, and Harry would swallow hard, knowing those vulture – because his uncle did rather resemble that damned buzzard – talons specifically for him.

            And so they were.

            Harry checked every morning afterwards and found imprints of his punishments in his shoulders, arms, sides, chest, and legs.  Even his neck and collarbone were impressed with remnants of a battle he never won – and Uncle Vernon had taken to scratching (and some rather repulsive biting) now, as well.  It was very obvious to Harry what his uncle was eventually after.

            He stared at himself in the mirror each and every morning and wondered why he didn't fight back.  He knew he only needed to post a letter to Hermione and he would be out in two days, no questions asked.  He was pretty sure his uncle knew this, too, and would not let him near the mailbox, but he could do it.  He could probably even break his wand out of the family safe if he wanted, or maybe try something without his wand.

            He just didn't.

            "Do you like that?" Vernon always asked, hissing in his ear and digging his nails deep into the crook of Harry's elbow, forcing an old wound to bleed forth.  His nephew never answered, feeling his uncle scratch his forearm with the other hand as Harry stood beside his study desk, unable to move.  "You foolish, dimwitted, foul, stick-waving little brat."  His nephew simply let himself bleed, silently agreeing with his uncle.

            Harry felt drained – of magic and of life.

            Had been by the time he had fallen on his bed the first night back to hell.

            He desperately wished, but never willed (for what will was contained in him?), for the treatment he had so loathed between the ages of ten and eleven.  The Dursleys had disconnected him from their eyes, rarely looking at him and never touching him.  He equated the almost total disregard and indifference to his being between his first decade and eleventh birthday with his family knowing that birthday was a particularly dangerous one.  His magic was soon to come to his knowledge, whether the Dursleys liked it or not, and they desperately feared him for it.

            Mr. Dursley especially.

            But Harry knew his uncle Vernon didn't regret a thing he had done to Harry in the past; it was quite obvious with the current goings-on.  He recognized Harry abhorred magic and reveled in the knowledge, not once worrying he might be answering to his nephew's outlandish powers.

            The last magic, in fact, Harry had performed had been hexing Draco Malfoy on the Hogwarts Express and had even sent the sod a rambling, incoherent apology on one of his more hysterical days, while Hedwig was still coming to see him.  Vernon had surprised him just before getting in the shower and had nearly beaten Harry to a bloody pulp of nothingness.  Why he had done this, Harry still didn't know, didn't care, but was far beyond penning a letter of any sort to anyone in his life who could read between the lines and stop the torture, as he had considered it once, very long ago, in its tracks.

            Draco had never replied and Harry was slightly relieved.  The lunacy and anger ripping through that letter was beyond stunning, and Malfoy probably thought he was insane – _All the better_, he thought – or being pressed by headmaster Albus Dumbledore to write.  With any luck, the letter had been burned and forgotten.

            Harry found early into holidays he had no energy to fight Vernon Dursley and damn him, he knew it all too well.  His uncle was thus only too glad to see Harry not work on his resolve and just slip further into quiet despair and silent desperation.  Vernon believed gleefully he was breaking Harry – though whether or not that was true (he wasn't sure), Harry let him believe it.

            He merely let life go on and begrudgingly followed an oddly passive Aunt Petunia – Harry suspected she was being rocked into her own silent status – through supermarkets and other shops, never noticing the people staring at him.

            These people took in the thin wine-coloured scar slashed across his forehead, his dark midnight hair so strangely contrasted with his vibrant but quickly fading emerald eyes, and the perpetual melancholy etched upon his face.  Their faces were usually solemn, or held curiosity united with sadness for such a poor looking boy.  He only absently tugged at his sleeves, far too long and dark for donning in the heat of such a sweltering summer, and dropped the ham – or whatever the hell it was Aunt Petunia was going to feed them that night – into the basket.

            The punishments, usually hidden by these long-sleeves, were often dealt out because of his nightmares.  Harry woke up screaming, sometimes crying, always in a cold sweat, several times a week – if not every day.  The only times he slept dreamlessly were his afternoon naps he took when Vernon wasn't in the house, which was a thing quickly becoming increasingly infrequent.  But those naps only made up a quarter of what he lost at night, reliving anything from his first smack to what he knew of his parents' death to the Cruciatus Curse, splitting and exploding his nerves in a way that was simply . . . unforgivable.

            The morning before, Wednesday, back in the present time, had been broken by Harry sitting straight up in bed, screaming and sobbing at the same time.  He cursed himself for being so weak.  He knew they were all nightmares, told himself so even as they were happening, told himself to let go, let go of the lies.

            But he could not.

            And dreams, he knew, weren't supposed to hurt, but they did.

            The nightmares – whatever they were – always started the same as they had in life, but they showed him options.  Choices that he had blindly not seen at the time and  although generally admittedly ridiculous – a hot air balloon would _not _have worked in _that_ situation – seemed to have the best resolution.  So, he would take them, take the right choice.  In doing so, Harry knew with great satisfaction and happiness that his parents would be alive again, little Ginny Weasley would never be coerced by the young Lord Voldemort, Ron would never have had a slug problem, his godfather Sirius Black would never have gone to Azkaban, Vernon Dursley would never have been able to look his way, Cedric Diggory would never have. . . .

            Therefore, they – the dreams, the nightmares, the very wrath of his existence – at first seemed perfect.  Things are going exactly right, the way they should have gone had he not botched everything up.  Had he read, had he listened, had he seen, had he understood . . . At these thoughts, which never fail to pop into his mind, the fan is brought out and turned on, and hell is unleashed.

            He can't even think about it; just begins to thrash and moan in his sleep until his mind and body can't stand it any longer, and he's awake and he's doing whatever he was going in the dream.  (Besides bleeding profusely, unless he's torn at his fresh wounds, or having his soul sucked from his very skin, of course.)

            The bloodcurdling scream Harry let out that early midweek morning must have unsettled vermin and roused robins three leagues away.  The phone immediately rang and as Harry lay gasping for breath, fighting back searing tears of pain, he could hear Uncle Vernon explaining his actions loudly to a concerned and irritated neighbour.

            "Harry is a very sick and twisted boy.  Been off his rocker since his parents died, even when he was a 'littlun.  Dangerous, gets into all sorts of trouble.  Goes to St. Brutus's, you know. . . .  Yes, yes.  Don't let your daughter or even that dog around the little sod . . . He does it all for attention. . . .  Yes, it's very hard to find proper psychiatric care for him.  Thank you for ringing us, Marcie, I'm sure you'll help the rest of lovely neighbours to understand our . . . situation."

            Harry had groaned and flopped back on the bed.  He'd actually been making friends with the little girl next door.  The pretty little girl with gold ringlets and rosy cheeks, he reflected; the only innocence left in his life.  He'd seen her poking a sky blue eye through a fissure in the fence, giggling, earlier that July and they had spent time together ever since.  She brought him flowers sometimes when he stretched out on the bench in the garden, staring blankly into the trees.  Never said a word to him and he never asked her to say anything, just enjoyed knowing she was there beyond the fence, peering curiously at him from time to time underneath a circlet of morning glories and poppies.  Now she would probably run away from him in terror.

            Bloody hell.

            He hadn't gone to breakfast that morning and was able to prove easily to his aunt that he wasn't hungry.  Retching the previous night's dinner and a certain amount of lunch for a quarter hour in the bathroom is often good testimony for that sort of thing.  His bout with the 'loo even got him a few aspirins out of Petunia before she left for work.

            In order to stay cool, Harry had peeled off his sweater, which he'd worn to bed and had been clinging to his skin, soaked with sweat.  He laid out on his stomach, not even bothering to get back under the blankets, face buried in his scratchy pillow.

            Harry was still half-asleep around thirty minutes past the work hour, straddling the line between harsh reality in which he was a coward and the insensitive dreamland in which he was a pawn of his own devices.  He didn't realize Vernon Dursley was in the room until it was quite apparent – by the immense pressure and pain abruptly put on his legs – that his uncle was sitting on him.

            Harry gave a muffled cry and tried to rise, but Uncle Vernon seized him by the shoulders – nails cutting, burying in unmercifully.  Harry yelped once more and his uncle shoved him back on the bed, holding him in place.

            "Trying to get the neighbours to rouse the Bobbies, insolent boy?" Uncle Vernon growled into Harry's ear.  Harry was kicking himself for being so stupid as to not remember this was one of Vernon's days home.  "Had to smooth over six different family's 'concerns for you.'  As if anyone actually has a fucking concern about you."  He chuckled coldly.  "I'll teach you to stop embarrassing this family – and _me_."

            "Uncle Vernon – " Harry began angrily, trying to rise again.  He choked on his words as a sharp pain shot through his body.

            _Magic?_ Harry thought vaguely for a moment . . . but no.  No magic here.  Never any magic here.

            Vernon Dursley's sharpened nails – ugly, yellow, thick, and incredibly brutal – wreaked their terror down across his shoulder blades, ravishing the flesh over his kidneys, and ending cruelly at the small of his back.  Harry arched his spine involuntarily, gasping for breath.  His uncle roughly pushed him back into place and brutalized his backside again, again – and again.

            He tried desperately not to scream, especially not to cry out or whimper.  Especially not whimper, if that was all he could possibly do.  That's what his uncle wanted, Harry knew – to express his unlimited power over him and have his nephew show it to him in the most humiliating of ways.  And Harry, feeling almost as if under the Cruciatus Curse, concentrated on tuning out the pain as if it was just a buzzing noise, unable to think of anything else.

            Harry buried his face into his pillow again, squeezing his eyes shut and tightening his fists around the edges of the duvet.  He felt the sting of blood leaking in and out of his wounds and faintly wondered, rather accurately, if it wasn't just his nails Vernon Dursley was using anymore.

            _Please stop_, Harry begged silently to no one in particular, _please stop_.

            Finally, what seemed like hours later, Uncle Vernon pulled himself up.  He happily labeled Harry with very colourful terms while calmly wiping his hands on a coarse cloth, dried in the sun but still sodden with slick motor oil.  As an afterthought, he dragged the rag across Harry's abused waist, letting oil and stiff cloth intermingle with his deep scratches and other handiwork.

            Harry gasped so loudly it echoed on the walls of his little room and was told, very smugly, "Don't move, you insufferable little sod.  I'll be back with more – all that you deserve and seem to want."  His uncle's harsh laugh echoed in his ears for hours and he stared blankly at the wall before his eyes.  Harry wondered dimly what was going to happen when he got back to Hogwarts in September and Draco Malfoy found out he could no longer even perform a simple levitation charm.


	2. Sweet Misery

_The Spirit Room_

  
**Chapter 2: Sweet Misery**

_"We are here for Harry Potter . . ."_

The words hung in silence for several moments until there was a sudden pounding from beneath the stairs and a muffled cry accompanying the noise. The three men stepped through the entrance to the house and their hosts backed slowly away. 

Eying the stairs, but appearing nonplussed, the light-haired man's stare settled back on Vernon and Petunia Dursley. "Where is his trunk, Mr. Dursley?" The large, purple-faced man said nothing, looking very bristled and perturbed that the thin man standing before him seemed to know who he was. "This can be very easy, Mr. Dursley, with no harm coming to you or your lovely wife, or even your son." The purple rushed from the heavy man's face into an ashen white. "Where is the boy's trunk? Where is his wand - and where is the bird?" 

Vernon Dursley gawked at the dark trio, opening and shutting his mouth without a sound emitting from his rather beefy throat. All the while, the five adults could hear more pounding and increasingly desperate shouts. Petrified but not frozen, Petunia Dursley stepped forward defiantly. 

"I know where it is. The owl is at a friend's home, but the trunk is in Harry's room . . . now . . . and his wand is in our family safe - in the bedroom," she said, as an afterthought. 

"P - Petunia!" Vernon sputtered, horrified. 

The man who seemed to know Petunia's memories, wand still raised, took a step forward as well, pulling his hood over his head to conceal his face in shadows. He towered over the woman, leaning very close to her. "Do you know the combination to this safe?" 

Petunia nodded slowly, biting her lip to quell her trembling. She ignored her husband. 

"Show me," the man breathed in her ear, just loud enough for everyone to hear. Petunia, a wand pointed at her back, calmly led the man up the stairs, where now only a defeated knocking could be heard coming from underneath, locked behind the cupboard door. 

Light eyes then flickered to Vernon Dursley from watching the two ascend to the second floor landing and disappear. "You seem a little reluctant to hand over your nephew, Mr. Dursley, even with a very testy wand pointed at your heart." 

He and the first, darkest man pulled their own hoods over their heads. Only their upper lips and what was beneath it could be seen protruding from the shadows, shrouded in a magical darkness. 

"Has the boy done something to bring about such a . . . _severe_ punishment?" the light-haired man asked, indicating down the hall where the door to the small cupboard under the stairs was closed and bolted shut. In his prison, Harry Potter was silent, as if listening - or, perhaps, wallowing in sorrow. It was hard to tell. 

"M - m - m -" 

"Magic?" said the man in a voice carefully disguised as calm. He let out a soft, hollow laugh, his strange eyes smoldering with an unearthly fire. "Oh, no, sir. No, no, no, no, no." He clucked his tongue disapprovingly and shook his head. "I highly doubt magic was even involved in this matter. I would give my right arm, in fact . . ." 

Vernon Dursley seized his right arm, protectively wrapping his left hand around his fat wrist. He shifted his weight, nervous under the cold states he knew were - but could not see - upon him. The two people in front of him suppressed smiles, the corners of their mouths instead merely turning up derisively. 

"They are taking a long time," said the large, brute of a man after a few minutes of silence. His attempt not to stammer whilst speaking of his wife and the second man was not a total failure. 

"He won't do much to her. Sharpen those often?" The man nodded at Vernon Dursley's yellow nails, painfully obvious and wicked against his blotchy red skin. Swallowing, Mr. Dursley hid his hands behind his back and was rewarded with a bitter frown. 

"Get him out of there," the light haired man said to the other man, keeping his eyes, flashing coldly, on the loutish fiend in front of him. "_Now_." 

* * *

"You will not, sir!" Mr. Dursley shouted, reddening with anger and wheeling on the dark man starting down the hall. His eyes bugged out of his head. Vernon Dursley struggling to salvage his dignity and protect himself in the meantime was never a pretty thing. "You will not open that door unless you want the maddest little wanker in Surrey on your hands!" 

Harry was beginning to shout incoherently again, pounding on the door, crazed in the thought these men - whoever they were - might believe Uncle Vernon and politely take their leave. He had been locked in this cupboard for far too long, physically and mentally, and was ready to escape its webs of madness, spindling and encircling him with a lunacy he was desperate to escape. 

He heard footsteps on the stairs above him and yelled more, begging, pleading to be released from the darkened chamber. His fists suddenly flew into air, instead of slamming into wood, and he rushed blindly forward, wrapping his arms around the waist of a figure draped in a sea of black robes. 

"Oh, God, thank you, thank you," he sobbed, clutching the fabric tightly in his hands, unable to control himself. The figure grabbed his elbows firmly. "Thank you . . ." 

"Funny," said an unfamiliar and very wintry voice. Harry pulled back slightly and looked up, mouth dropping open in absolute terror. His insides went cold and his first thought was _dementor_ . . . but dementors did not speak English, nor did they smile, and this man was leaning over Harry so he could see his cruel smile and pale skin and hear his voice far too clearly. " . . . and truly very curious, that you would so easily embrace your worst and most hated enemy." 

Harry had no time to think. He knew between himself and the front door stood Uncle Vernon, trapped by his own mystery man. He was being joined by Aunt Petunia and her captor, also dressed in foreboding ebony robes, which made that exit completely impossible. The kitchen with its unlocked back door was very inviting. By the time he thought to struggle, though, the dark man in front of him had grabbed his wrist, spun him around, and was now marching him into the front hall. 

Uncle Vernon's countenance was conflicted between total fury and alarming fear, meaning he was an intriguing shade of mauve. Aunt Petunia looked slightly pained and very pale, but was otherwise expressionless, her sharp blue eyes watching all three men with resentment but also a strange reserve. 

"Mad, is he?" Harry's vanquisher demanded scornfully of Uncle Vernon, shoving Harry into the middle of the awkward circle the five adults and school trunk had "inadvertently" created. Harry could hear the hatred dripping from the man's voice. "Not nearly as mad, you despicable Muggle, as you for putting him in that cupboard. I have a right mind to put you out of the world's misery." 

The look on Uncle Vernon's face might have been priceless if Harry hadn't adopted the same stricken expression and closed his eyes, not wanting to see. He wouldn't be able to stand another death, even if - 

"Now, now," tutted the man beside Aunt Petunia, acidly. "We're only out to collect the boy's blood, not these Muggles." Uncle Vernon took a step backward and grimaced angrily when his back hit the banister. The man looked at Mr. Dursley, although Harry could only see his mouth and chin, and seemed grimly satisfied. 

Harry had to bite back a painful yelp as Aunt Petunia suddenly arrested him. She gripped his upper arms with her hands, pulling him to her so close their foreheads bumped and pressed together. She shook him slightly to emphasize her words. Not one of the captors moved to stop her. "Harry - Harry, listen to me. You are still under our care. Do you understand, Harry? You are _still_ under my care. Do you understand? Harry, please say you understand, please say yes. Harry - !" 

Aunt Petunia was looking at him with such urgency, her blue-green eyes nearly falling out of her head and her complexion was so very pale that Harry felt, despite the situation, compelled to answer her. "Y - yes," he stammered, shaking visibly, "of - of course, Aunt Petunia." 

"We don't have all day for this," said the third man impatiently, dismissing the conversation as Petunia's captor pulled her almost gently away from Harry. His wand was still focused unwaveringly at Uncle Vernon's heart. "You've said your good-byes, Mr. Potter?" 

"Wait." The man next to Petunia let go of her arm and drew out his wand. Harry stiffened but the man controlling Vernon, eyes probably never dithering from the wretch, snatched the arm of Harry's jumper with his free hand and entangled his fingers in the woolly fabric. Not being allowed to move forward, Harry glared at the man who smiled viciously then looked away, astonished at his own daring. 

Petunia Dursley said nothing - did not do _anything_ - as the man muttered a great many words and outlined her body with his wand. She could not and closed her eyes until he was finished. He ended just above her heart and smiled. "A protection spell," he said in his raspy voice, "from _him_." He gestured to Harry's uncle then turned back to Petunia. "He nor any other man can touch you, if they intend to harm you. Except" - he laughed and brushed Petunia's cheek with the back of his hand - "Lord Voldemort . . . and me." 

The three darkly clad men roared with soft laughter. Riveted to the spot, Harry stood there long after the man watching Vernon had released his hold. He realized he was trembling and the front door magically opened, turning him toward his inevitable destiny. He raised his quivering chin and looked at the man in front of him, blocking the door. 

"Pr - pr . . . where . . . ?" 

"Your precious Professor Dumbledore is in very good hands," snarled his original captor from behind and Harry's heart plummeted into his stomach. He was abruptly propelled forward. "Now, let's go." 

Harry was marched from the room, Vernon's man in the lead. The second man, Petunia's accoster, was traveling at his left side, his trunk floating at waist level on the other, preventing his escape rather well. The man who had taken him from the cupboard under the stairs followed behind him. The front door slammed shut and Harry looked up at the street. 

A fourth figure, much smaller and slimmer than the other three, stood just beyond the fence. He - or she, with another glance at their size - was dressed also in black, hood pulled over their head, resembling a druid down to the neatly-tied twine robe around their waist. Harry anxiously strained to see the person's face, but quickly came to the conclusion that all four hoods of the figures were enchanted by magic to conceal their faces from his, or anyone else's, view. 

"There you are," said the fourth one irritably, looking pointedly at its three associates. "One of those stupid kneazle-felines followed me halfway here. I had to kick it to get it to leave me the bloody well alone." Harry nearly tripped when he saw a white as snow chin jutting out from within the shadows of the hood. _Death Eaters_, his mind acknowledged bitterly, confirming his fears. 

"I didn't know we were running on your time, little one," said the one in front of Harry mildly. "We had a few unexpected . . . _problems_ collecting him." There was a sudden burst of shouting from inside the house of four, Privet Drive and a bellow of pain, unmistakably coming from the mouth of a one Mr. Vernon Dursley. 

"Oh." The fourth figure smirked - Harry saw he was wrong in thinking the person wore a mask, but it did not soothe his rapidly beating heart - and stared up at the house behind them. "I see." 

Giving Harry a very leering smile, the younger one - definitely female, Harry decided, even if the voice was utterly indistinguishable - spun around. She pulled out her wand and flicked her wrist. The trunk shifted about two feet away from Harry in the air and the third man - the one who'd been in front of him - slid in alongside Harry before he even had a second's chance to flee his captors. The woman replaced him, levitating his trunk in front of their procession. 

The man behind him placed a hand on Harry's back to urge him forward, but Harry bit back a cry and, grimacing, leaned out of the way. There was a moment of silence as the man behind him and the one on his left exchanged glances. Harry stared at the ground, focusing on the loose cobblestones instead of the fire that had raced through his body and instigated a furious stinging in the corners of his eyes. 

"Move," one of the captors - he didn't know which - finally said and, flanked by four very ominous figures, and trembling head to toe, Harry began to trudge away from Privet Drive. 

As they walked, the stinging sensations at the corners of Harry's eyes were becoming increasingly harder to blink away. He only noticed faintly that, apart from a sprinkler and an abandoned grumbling lawnmower, the neighbourhood was empty of sound or movement. There was probably a charm on them, keeping their gazes fixated on something like the kitchen blender or a jar of potpourri rather than looking past the windowpanes. 

_If these . . . these Death Eaters_, Harry spat in his mind, _have come for me, that must mean . . ._ He struggled to hold back tears by pressing his stubby nails into his palms as he reiterated the information to himself again, trying desperately to understand. _Voldemort must have . . ._ has _done something - terrible - to Professor Dumbledore. Why didn't anyone tell me? Hermione has Hedwig . . . Mr. Weasley's in the Ministry, Ron would have written if something had . . . oh God . . ._

Harry realized with a start that they were coming upon the house of Mrs. Figg, the woman who occasionally took care of him when the Dursleys decided to take Dudley out. He stopped dead in his tracks and nearly fell over as the man behind stumbled into him. 

"No!" Harry shouted, fighting with a newfound energy to get away. He turned around and tried to leap past two of the men, tears running unabashedly down his face. "Mrs. Figg, Dumbledore, Hermione, the Weasleys . . . _Ron_! What have you done? _What the hell have you done?_ Get off me, get - " 

Three pairs of hands took hold of him in various areas and started dragging him up the walk, still screaming hysterically and wildly flailing his arms. The woman ran up to the front door and pounded furiously, calling for the door to be unlocked. 

"We're invisible, not soundless," someone hissed over Harry's head, clamping a hand over Harry's mouth. 

"Well, no -" 

"Shut your mouths and get him in here!" the woman ordered sharply as the door swung open, ducking in quickly with his school trunk so her three accomplices could follow her into the darkness of the house. 

Harry thrashed about with all his might, but three grown men against an exceptionally thin boy would always win. They dragged him past the past the overgrown grass, half covered with rat-infested ivy, untrimmed hedges and tall bluebells, and through the door. He was still howling, albeit weakly, striving and failing not to give up until it was impossible not to admit defeat to the men. 

They stumbled past the round kitchen nook table, knocking over several barstools at the counter parallel to the table in the process. The green-eyed boy who was so special was hauled up the few steps leading into the living room and pulled down a long dark hallway he'd had never been down before, lit only by small dim torches. Harry could only glance at them for a moment when he was thrown into a very dark room. 

He fell into the back of a chair and had to grip the wood backing, catching his breath and looking feverishly around the room. It was dark, blacker than night, save for the flickering fire, cornered at the end of the left and closest wall to the door. The glow from it cast a dark golden light over the chair he held on to, the identical one beside it and a coffee table in front of them. A long leather settee, with a hard-looking back and covered with brass buttons in a very old-fashioned style, was facing the three, half-bathed in the light, and he could see no further than that into the chamber. 

For one fleeting moment, Harry believed he might be left to his own devices in this room, having been alone for several minutes after catching his breath. In the next, hands unexpectedly wrapped around his meager biceps and he was pulled over the coffee table with almost inhuman strength and drove him onto the couch. Harry fought back, scratching and punching at his captors, but his efforts were in vain as they wrestled him easily onto the sofa. He quickly found himself on his stomach, writhing madly under the hands holding fast to him. 

A body sat down instantly beside him, pinning his legs between their hip and where the sofa back met cushion. Another person hauled Harry's right arm out from where it was trapped under his chest and pulled it up, yanking his wrist and half of his forearm over the backing to render him immobile. Yet another sank to their knees beside the end of the couch and grabbed his left wrist, drawing it down so far he felt his knuckles brush and knock upon the polished hardwood floor. 

He was trapped. 

  



	3. Turn it Inside Out

_The Spirit Room_

  


**Chapter Three: Turn It Inside Out**

"He has no idea why he's here," announced the fourth cohort. 

The group was standing outside the chamber door, having just pushed their captive inside. 

"It's not as if we've told him," snarled the second man, infuriated. He folded his arms across his chest and glared at the young one of their group for stating the oh-so-sodding-obvious. "He's already got a decent idea in mind, if you couldn't tell. Did you see how he fought? . . . I didn't think he had it in him." 

"Insane Muggle. Spoiled him for the rest of us," said the fourth, tone becoming artic and returning the fierce look with an angry stare. 

The first man glowered at all three of his accomplices, holding his fists balled at his side. "What _I_ want to know at this moment is what in hell is wrong with him until we do anything else. We don't need him anymore tarnished than he is now, _do_ we?" 

"Well, _he_ doesn't want him hurt, that's for sure, or it will be on _our_ heads." 

"Let's get this over with," said the second man darkly, his eyes hooded underneath a mass of dark hair. "I have places to be." 

"Yes, that's right, you are the _only_ one who - " 

"How injured do you believe he is?" the moon-haired one asked quietly, signaling for his three companions to lower their voices so Harry Potter, gasping for breath barely five feet beyond the door and clutching one of the high-backed chairs for dear life, would not hear them. He looked up and watched a fifth figure approach from the hall they had just come down, nodding his respect to her as she stopped before the arguing group. 

"Hard to say until I look him over," replied the first sourly, also greeting the woman with a curt nod. "That _Muggle_ does not seem to exactly be a _gentleman_ and he" - he pointed accusingly at the second man - "is more familiar with those people than I am." He regarded the second man coldly, turning on his heel to meet him face-to-face. "You also spoke with the woman. What did she say?" 

"Hardly anything, but actions speak much more than words." 

"Which is certainly where we are right at this moment," snapped the woman. This newly arrived figure had an authoritarian voice that made all four conspirators take heed and listen. She glared at them as she tugged her hood over her head, intending to enter the dark room as well. "It isn't that hard. Stop jabbering nonsense - he's been in there unaccompanied for too long now. He'll think you've gone soft. Take him to the couch and look him over, then do what you want with him." 

* * *

A hand slipped under his sweater and tentatively touched his back. Harry cried out involuntarily as wounds began to leak crimson lava again, burning him. The hand retreated and he gasped as he felt cool metal brush the small of his back, the hand suddenly replaced by something very long, very cold, and very sharp. 

The tip of the dagger prodded at his skin and he shrank away from it instinctively, feeling the sharpened point almost cut his already marred backside. The wielder of the blade lifted it above his back and placed a hand squarely on his back, holding him in place. He bit his lip as the unknown character sliced his jumper in half, straight up the middle, cutting through his collar cleanly and sweeping expertly past the unruly hair licking the nape of his neck. The remains of Harry's sweater fell to the wayside, helped by the knife owner's quick hand, exposing his back to the room. 

There was a sharp intake of breath at the sight from the body leaning over him and the room hushed, the crackling of the flames in the inglenook the only thing breaking the silence. 

Harry stopped moving, stopped trying to get away; there was no point in resisting anymore. He nearly moaned, knowing what was coming and wondering why he cared, as this had been Uncle Vernon's intention all along. He lifted his head slightly and looked around the room, forgetting as best he could. Two figures stood just beyond the chairs, straddling the line between light and dark, their robes outlined by the firelight. He knew there were more people dancing amidst the shadows, concealed from his view but ever watching; he had heard heavy whispering before the room had lapsed into its current silence. Harry closed his eyes and suppressed a shudder, lowering his head into the soft black leather of the couch. If he just focused on the smell, maybe he could escape. 

To Harry's great surprise and alarm, he was suddenly flipped on to his back in a movement that could only have been magically induced. The air was knocked from his lungs and he was left fighting, gasping for breath. Hands snatched his wrists once he'd calmed down and held him steady against the yielding leather cushions. The knife rushed past his chin like a whisper, slicing the front of his sweater in two. The remaining scraps of the jumper were pushed around his arms, exposing his emaciated torso to the room. Unexpected tears welled in his eyes for a moment, paining and preoccupying his breathing even more. 

He went rigid and arched his back in surprise as the hooded holding his legs fast to the couch ran sinewy, confident hands down his thin white chest. He bit back tears and wails of anguish as the man slid his hands with brutal intensity along his arms, teasing the weak physique of his skeletal-like body and ripping away the rest of the shredded jumper. The hands violently pressed their fingers against Harry's abdominal muscles, dancing on their childlike satin, and rubbing his ribs in slow circles. The long fingers attached to the hot-cold hands then glided over his pectorals again, pushing into every crevice they could find with absolutely no mercy or thought for the quivering boy beneath him. 

Harry finally raised his eyes to meet the man's, or at least attempt to catch his gaze. The man stopped and withdrew his hands from his chest, letting them disappear into the folds of his billowing sleeves. They stared at each other for an eternal moment and with a slight tilt of the shadow-man's head, Harry was flipped over once more to his stomach, the angry scars and gashes open yet again to the world. 

His arms were pulled back they way they had first been pinned over the sides of the couch, and his legs suddenly felt as if they were bound to the cushions. Muffled between his mouth and the tough fabric, the dark-haired boy let out a soft groan and tried to let himself sink into the couch, afraid but accepting of what was to come next. 

There was a rustle of movement - fabric swishing across the wooden floor - and Harry slowly lifted his gaze, staring blankly in front of him, just above the curved arm of the couch. 

He saw nothing but darkness, despair, and the despondency of his life. 

They were probably behind him now, the wretched little boy thought. He felt ill. The lid of a jar unscrewing was the next sound to echo around the room - and Harry knew this was it. He shut his eyes tightly and tensed the muscles in his lower body, wishing for it to be done quickly. Maybe he could slip into unconsciousness before - 

Harry let out a twist of a gasp and a cry, his body surging forward as two hands, covered in a glutinous substance, seized his shoulder blades. Fingers interlaced forcefully with his own from both sides of the couch, gripping his arms tightly with their free hands, as his breath quickened and shuddered in time with his feverishly beating heart. He suddenly felt a body lean over the arm of the couch and a cool cheek pressed against his own. The hands loosened their hold on his back, but were not removed. 

"Against mine, Harry, against me," a voice belonging to no one he knew but seemed to breathed into his ear. "Cheek to mine," it said more urgently, thrusting his jaw against the side of Harry's face to show him what to do when the meek boy gave no response, save a small whimper of pain. Something was pushed into his mouth - a strip of leather or dragonhide, by the feel and smell of it. "Bite down on this." 

Harry followed his instructions; he recognized there was no other way, nothing else to do but comply. The person pressing themselves against him must have given the one with the cruel hands a nod or look of approval, because the next thing Harry knew was fire. It ripped through his body like nothing he'd felt before . . . almost as bad as the last few days, nearly as cold as the Cruciatus Curse, and yet perhaps it was all much worse. 

He couldn't tell if the hands were soothing or spiteful, nor what the liniment was intended for, and didn't have time to care. He cried out, shoving his cheek into the man beside him with such great force that he nearly lost the bit as he shouted, gasping out a tearful sob of "_Stop!_" 

The pain ripping through his body ended abruptly and the man next to him pulled away slightly to look at his accomplice lighting the match upon his back. There was a long moment of silence and he felt the hands holding his tighten their grips, giving him the incentive, the plea, to grasp their own. He did, but only when the torment resumed; slower this time, but still alighting the same terrible inferno. 

Harry felt his body tense every time the emulsion was worked into his open wounds and gashes, feeling like each knead of his skin beneath the cruel fingers was the first. The person leaning over the couch pushed back against his cheek, giving him footing as he curled his toes in his shoes and fought back tears as a painful relief slowly slid through his back, gripping the anonymous fingers like there was to be no return. 

A slower and steadier rhythm progressed - it had been more intentionally rough in the beginning - and Harry's back began to relax under the perplexing massage. It wasn't until he awoke in a bed of cool, silken sheets, stretched out on his stomach with his arms sprawled above him on the pillows that Harry realized he'd fallen asleep. 

Bleary-eyed and dried tears still lingering on his face, Harry turned his head slightly sidelong into the pillow as he heard voices, seemingly coming through a thick mist to gently caress his ears. He fought with himself to listen and not cry out in surprise, feeling a definite, fully unquestionable pain swell in him as he rotated his neck. It took a moment to recall why he would be in a bed, in such agony and his breath caught in his throat. 

". . . we must let the wounds heal on their own." 

"I thought you had healed them all together . . ." 

"The salve . . . cleaned and closed the wounds . . ." murmured a third voice from far away, perhaps near the door. 

". . . you wanted him pristine?" sneered the first voice, dripping with malice as the owner spoke with the second man, ignoring the trespasser to the conversation. "He will not scar, I have assured that. . . . was all I did. But . . . heal naturally; magic on such a butchery would have . . . certainly left disfigurement in its wake. The same for his bloody mind, unless . . . want him to be as irrational . . . -ing mad . . . the Longbottoms. . . . Must let all good things come in time . . . no one wants him marred, not now anyway . . ." 

The second voice barked out a laugh and Harry found he could now hear them both properly, albeit still awaking from the realm of dreamland. He moaned unexpectedly, trying to rise. The soft cracking of a dried-out cream on his back was an odd sound and he attempted to look behind him. A white sheet and black coverlet had been pulled up to his waist so it would not mingle with the lavender-coloured paste and he was sure he was completely naked. Harry shifted slightly and, confirming his suspicions, decided he didn't want to know any more and continued trying to look over his shoulder. 

He could dimly make out the couch and chairs sitting across the room in the darkened room, the only light beside that coming from the fireplace focused on him from some unknown place. Again he moaned, trying to cover his eyes and quell the sudden queasiness exploding dangerously in his stomach. Almost immediately someone was beside him, bending over the bed slightly to push him back down. 

"Drink this," said a thick voice. A glass was brought to his lips and tipped. Harry coughed and sputtered, but it was too late as a heavy potion poured down his throat and he was forced to swallow the foul infusion. "That's right. Close your eyes . . ." 

Harry felt himself start to fly away again, more quickly this time. Dully, he wondered what they'd given him. _Poison, no doubt_, he reasoned, licking his lips serenely as his head settled back into the goose-down pillow, held there gently by a heavy hand. _Couldn't kill me before . . . trying again . . . well, it's not as if it's a terrible death . . . yet . . ._

When he woke the second time, the covers had been drawn over his shoulders and he could no longer feel anything but a dull ache stinging the skin around his spine. He sighed and lay there for a long time, understanding everything and understanding nothing. The ointment on his back was gone, having served its purpose - whatever it was. 

_Wicked saviors_, he thought darkly, cringing at the thought of the earlier state of affairs. He gripped the bed sheets in tightly clenched fists. 

There was a shuffling of footsteps and Harry turned slightly, back still extremely tender, to see who - or _what_ - was coming toward him. Without any warning whatsoever, he was hauled from the bed by his arms and brought face-to-face with a bowl, jutting from the darkness of robes and the room. It was steaming and the overpowering smell of stew wet his mouth. Harry hadn't eaten in at least a day or two, for all his stomach - and brain, since Uncle Vernon had refused to feed him since the nightmare several mornings before - could tell. His nudity, obvious now on removal of the coverlet, was forgotten. 

The robed person holding the stew took the spoon in the bowl in hand, scooped out a bit into it, and brought it to Harry's lips. Though he was hungrier than he'd been in a very long time, he shut his mouth tightly, hemlock or even some other just as simplistic poison quite vivid in his mind. 

"You do not wish to eat?" the Robe asked; Harry could see no face no matter how hard he tried to see and thought this designation was entitled to this creature, for even his original captors were somewhat easy to distinguish between, if he bothered to listen. The voice was so disfigured that he couldn't distinguish gender or even if the thing was human. Harry shook his head vigorously in dissent. "You are hungry." He nodded then again shook his head no when the spoon of food was offered again. 

The Robe sighed, lowering the spoon. "You do not trust us. Why not?" 

Again, Harry nodded, very slowly. "I have no reason to." 

Instantaneously, a total darkness swept before Harry's eyes and he realized his face was halfway into the creature's hood, feeling its blistering, spicy breath on his face. He desperately bit back a cry of alarm and was supported only by the Robe grabbing his elbow tightly. "That is entirely incorrect, Mr. Potter," the Robe growled, its countenance changing so abruptly Harry felt chills run up and down his spine. 

Fear began to leech onto Harry's face, etching itself intricately into his muscles and erupting in his eyes, but he forced himself to push it away. "You have every reason to trust us because we would not have taken the measures to bring you here just to poison you. A waste of effort purely on our part. There would be no point in that, do you see?" The creature drew away from him and Harry coughed roughly, trying not to choke as he relieved himself from the hot, heavy breath that had torturously entered his lungs. 

Harry finally looked up and nodded weakly at the Robe. He knew it was right, whatever _it_ was. _Why would they feed me poison if they had taken such measures to capture me?_ These current accommodations and actions on behalf of his kidnappers reeked distinctly of a prolonged endeavor and Harry almost wished he was still at the Dursleys, succumbing himself to Uncle Vernon. What these people could do - _would_ do - how they would play with him, how they would break him slowly apart, would be far worse than Harry knew he could even imagine. And he understood fully well, and to his utter dismay, that he was powerless to stop them. 

"Well-behaved little vagrant now, aren't you?" the Robe asked contemptuously, picking the spoon out of the bowl again where it had been carelessly dropped in the heat of the moment. 

Harry grew red in a mixture of anger and embarrassment, but stopped himself from answering. He couldn't get angry outwardly - he grasped that idea; had told himself so repeatedly when he'd had time to think, which had not been very long, that he could not fight back or he would face consequences he wished not to learn. It was well known, at least through his own personal experience with these people, how they worked. 

"Oh, you don't like that, do you, little one?" the Robe mimicked Harry's furious resentment of its revile, cackling evilly. The individual who had helped wrench Harry from the bed snickered as well. The Robe sobered and looked pointedly in their direction, hushing them almost instantly. "Well, get used to it, little vagabond, because it is all you will be hearing." 

The spoon came back to Harry's lips and he reluctantly gulped down the searing hot food. "Good." The Robe handed him the bowl and pointed to the bed, gesturing for him to sit. "Eat your food after we leave. When you are done, put the bowl - and the spoon - on the floor. I expect you'll go back to sleep once you are finished." 

Gripping the wooden bowl and spoon in his hands, Harry lowered his eyes in affirmation and quickly, silently, sat on the bed, pausing only to cover himself again. After the door closed to the room, he promptly ate the food, despite the obvious warning of it being spiked with a sleeping draught. He did not want to risk being walked in upon and have the food ripped suddenly from his hands. When the bowl was licked clean - for who knew when he would eat again? - Harry placed the bowl on the floor beside the bed and sat back, holding the sheets around his waist protectively. 

The next few minutes were carried out in the silence of his mind, buzzing mutely with nothing of clarity able to be discerned. He finally slumped his shoulders, far too exhausted to hold them up in a dignified manner any longer. Harry had no dignity remaining anyway, so what was the point? Turning this over in his brain, he leaned forward and rolled his shoulders toward his chest. He bowed his head slightly, besieged with thoughts and ready to retch away his meal. 

He didn't know what had, or had not, happened to him in the hours he had been asleep. More than five but less than seven, he knew, for he felt the familiar throb of insomnia still tugging at his mind, even with the sleeping draught slowly pumping through his veins. Anything and everything could have happened - his whole body was sore and aching - and he'd only know if he checked, and he had no energy to find out the extent of his captors' maliciousness yet. That could wait a millennia or two, he decided bitterly, a hateful scowl working its way onto his face. 

This was definitely a fine predicament. 

And the problem of the century was how to solve the riddle. He was locked in, probably bound with magic, and being manipulated by controlled substances. These were small compared to the fact that he was utterly surrounded by intense, overwhelming figures who were shrouded in frosty mystery and most likely would not be merciful if he tried to escape their clutches. They were not expected to take kindly to something like that, or anything else he did. 

This was definitely a fine predicament. The Boy Who Lived sighed. 

Rewrapping and tightening the sheet around his waist, Harry stood up and decided to survey the room. He freed the sheet from the bed after a bit of a struggle, nearly stumbling into the large, squat, and very ugly armchair upholstered in shades of forest and pea-green. It was set facing the bed, about four feet away (being the only piece of furniture that was apparently and _obviously_ not of the set) and was truly one of the oddest pieces of furniture he'd ever seen. Maybe it was just entirely out of place that he found it so hideous, but he couldn't decide. 

The rest of the furniture in the room was definitely all supposed to be together. The polished oak of the chairs, coffee table, and couch all matched the dark polish of the king sized bed, situated in the center of the far wall, probably twenty-five or thirty feet directly from the door. There was probably four feet of space between the twin chairs and the door, and the same between the chest - _his_ chest - at the foot of the bed and the couch. 

Harry noticed suddenly that the floor was stone instead of wood, changing into cold rock right beneath his feet. He shivered, remembering something he had not recalled before just then. _Arabella Figg - Miss Figg - Dumbledore told Sirius to round up the 'old crowd.' Mundungus Fletcher, Arabella Figg . . . she _must_ be a witch._ Harry sighed. _Or was._

From the middle of the room, each side of the room extended at least nine metres. The wall with the fireplace in the corner and parallel to the bed was adorned with large portraits of people and creatures he didn't recognize, and landscapes of battles and death he could have lived without seeing. They didn't move, but he didn't expect them to; the severity in those eyes and the brutality of the wars said all they needed to say. 

Wrapping the dragging part of the sheet quickly around his arm so it wouldn't be able to trip him after a quick inspection of the hearth, which was enflamed with a magic fire and oddly made out of an adobe-like material, he crossed the room to the other adjacent wall. This wall was stone, with two still paintings of a castle in the dark of night and a raven in flight against an eclipsed moon, the silhouette enhanced by the gloom winding its way around the bird. Near the end of the wall, farthest from the door into the room, was a thin wooden door. Harry opened it and found a windowless bathroom. The gleaming white of the tile and fixtures nearly blinded him, and he shut the door quickly 

Stone blocks were also the wall used solely for the bed. Two torches were placed on either side of the bed, but neither was lit. The bed itself had a headboard and hangings, much like his bed at Hogwarts, but was not a four-poster. The drapes simply were hung and tied like curtains to the headboard, shadowing the pillows at the top part of the bed slightly. Also a major difference were the white cotton sheets, the black duvet made of thick brocade and gold thread, and the black silk of the hangings, making it look very strange indeed, lit by the strange lights now beginning to dim affixed to the inside of the headboard overhang. 

He knew the black and white were probably symbolic in some way and closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath to calm himself. 

The wall housing the door was void of portraits or trinkets save for a few candles lit in sconces high above his head. It was painted a very dark green, interlaced with raised black patterns that were very coarse to the touch but couldn't be established well because of the light. A few more candles had been lit and were sitting on the coffee table, but he did not dare touch them, fearful of the magic that might be running through them. 

That light's illumination led him to the door and its frame. He was surprised he hadn't noticed the light coming from it before, but, then again, certain circumstances had taken his attention away from such things. There were markings engraved in the doorframe, all the way around, one after another, shimmering on their own accord into different shades of blue. From the colour of the sky at noon etched with clouds to the colour enveloping the evening star at night, Harry thought he probably could see every blue hue to ever grace the earth with its presence. He sorely wished he had taken the Study of Ancient Runes, like Hermione had, and slowly raised a hand to touch one of the runes. 

"Sleep now," said a voice beyond the door. Harry started and then froze, hand not an inch from the frame. His eyes shot around the room wildly, just to make sure the speaker was _not_ in the room. No one was there. They could see him, he realized - right through the door. Perhaps even the wall. "Don't ask questions - just do it." 

He lowered his hand and quickly crossed the room back to the bed, pulling himself in and straightening the sheets slightly to put them back into a botched attempt for crazed orderliness. He pulled the coverlet over him and turned onto his stomach, finding it far too sore to lay on his back and assuming it would be for a long time. The lights dimmed to complete darkness. All Harry would have been able to see, had he slept on his face, would be the candlelight and a blacker than the blackest night silhouette, outlined by the faintly iridescent runes, staring at him from just outside the chamber door. 

~

"I know you're awake," said a new voice and Harry jumped, turning his head to his left. He was not at all pleased - in fact, extremely astonished - to see that he hadn't noticed a body sitting on the bed, not a foot from his legs, almost right beside his waist. 

He'd been awake for at least fifteen minutes, after his sleep of unknown but definitely extended duration. He was staring into the right side of the room, trying to adjust his eyes to the dark although he himself was bathed in bright light from the fixtures above his head, positioned in the headboard high above him, which had obviously decided to come back on sometime during his sleep. Harry felt well-rested, but knowing full well he'd probably had more sleep just then than he'd had in over a week at the Dursleys wasn't exactly a grand epiphany in this situation. 

He regarded at the hooded figure incredulously, thunderstruck he'd missed her presence. It was the smaller one from the afternoon - the day? the week? he couldn't be sure anymore - before and she'd most certainly had been there while he was still lost in the induced, dreamless reverie. She was expressionless as she regarded him from the gloom of her hooding. "No sense in hiding it any longer." 

"I -" Harry found his voice hoarse and struggled to control it, "I wasn't hiding anything." 

Nothing on what he could see of her face betrayed what she thought of this response. "Of course." She said nothing more for a long time, considering him from deep within her hood. 

"How are you feeling? Are you in any pain?" 

Seeing she was asking an honest question, he allowed himself to whisper, "All right." 

"Good." Again, she said nothing more. 

Harry shifted uncomfortably, eyeing her long pale fingers, which were extremely close to his left hip, strumming idly on the sheets he had exposed by pulling the black brocade duvet around him. "What -" 

"I did not tell you to speak, nor did I ask a question that required an answer, Mr. Potter." She frowned at him sourly, disapproving, and stilled her fingers. "You wish to know why you are here." Definitely _not_ a question. 

"Yes," said Harry hoarsely, trying to shift slightly away from her. 

"These are yours." A pair of glasses appeared in her hand and she offered them to him. Tentatively, Harry took them with one hand and pushed them onto his face, avoiding her eyes as he did. She smiled and reached out, trickling her nimble fingers across part of his lower back, gradually drawing her hand away only when he stiffened. "How does your back feel?" 

He took a long time to consider his answer. He took so long, in fact, running countless answers through his head Harry almost thought he might have answered already her and she was just staring at him, wondering why he had said whatever he'd said. "Better." 

"Good," she replied again, nodding her assent. "Did you sleep well?" 

Harry chose not to answer this question and instead demanded, "_Who are you?_" 

The woman regarded him coolly, all emotion disappearing from her face. "Do you really want to know that, Harry?" Her voice held its odd, low tone and in there was an underlying warning, as if to tell him he would not like what he would see. 

Numbly, Harry shook his head yes. 

A small smile began to spread on her face and she raised her hands to her hood. The long, flowing sleeves of her robes slipped down to her elbows, exposing snow-white flesh and she paused, holding her black hood with her completely contrasted fingers. Then, leisurely, unhurriedly, so Harry could see and comprehend every feature she possessed, she began to remove the cloth and gloomy shielding from her face. 

Slowly, a thin, gracefully angular face appeared, silver blue eyes sparkling bright against the pale skin. The black fabric then crested her forehead and fell away, revealing short, slicked back blonde hair, and the only person who could own up to all those attributes was one person. 

Draco Malfoy. 

The boy's eyes, kith and kin of both the ocean and the aurora borealis, twinkled maliciously and he smirked, raising his eyebrows as Harry groaned loudly and turned away, burying his head in his arms. He cocked his head slightly as his face fully appeared from the hood, now luminous like the moon that it was no longer shrouded in murkiness of shadows. His smile was a seemingly permanent fixture on his arrogant, self-assured face. 

"I'm not _that_ terrible, am I, Harry?" Malfoy asked in the same, indistinguishable-of-gender tone, but nevertheless cold and brogue as usual. 

"I knew it," Harry was muttering to himself. "How did I possibly know?" 

"Oh, come off it, Potter, you didn't know, you only suspected." Harry lifted and turned his head slowly around, staring at the flaxen-haired schoolmate in front of him. Malfoy sighed. "The only person you might have been able to think of, had you not been unconscious since early last night, would perhaps be the Death Eaters who had captured you before. A faction of some sort might be doing all this to you. But truly? You had no idea. No idea at all . . ." 

Harry could say nothing; it was all true, but it also made sense for Draco Malfoy, son of the second-in-command to Lord Voldemort, to be involved in this. "Your . . . your voice . . ." he finally managed to croak, trying to distance himself from the subject until completely necessary. 

"Mmm?" Draco asked, batting his eyes prettily with his hands folded in his lap. His expression was blank for a moment, then what Harry was talking about dawned on him and he crinkled his nose, being more expressive than Harry had ever seen him. "Oh, _that_." He reached into an unseen pocket near the front of his robes and withdrew his wand. He brought the tip of cherry wood diving rod to his throat and muttered, "_Finite incantatum_." 

Malfoy lowered the wand and coughed into his other hand, clearing his throat. His eyes watered slightly, focusing on the wall to get rid of them. He began speaking in a steadily clearer voice that was his own, "Well, couldn't have you screaming out our names to the Muggles. You might have told someone who we were. Doesn't matter if we're just wizards dressed in black robes. They'd figure we're _Death Eaters_, simple as that, but having names? Names means knowing style, characteristics, _favourites_, and we can't have them recalling all that, now, can we? Because then it would be fairly obvious." 

Harry had no idea what his classmate was going on about, other than he'd used a spell to disguise his voice and that it was uncomfortable to undo; the water pooling in Draco's ever-threatening eyes was quite evident of that. 

"Don't act as if you didn't know my father was a Death Eater, Potter," continued Draco in a perfectly conversational - if not cheerful - tone as he observed their surroundings not so curiously, the fleeting pain evidently gone. His eyes flickered back to meet Harry's and held them, his posture suddenly serious as he leaned slightly forward. "It's not as if _I_ don't know what happened that night." 

"Malfoy, I -" Harry began, trying hurriedly to get out of the bed and not crumple under the aching tenderness of his person while still keeping a wary eye on the boy sitting beside him. 

Malfoy stopped him with a calmly raised hand, looking at him pointedly until the midnight-graced boy was forced to collapse back into the blankets. He shook his head, tutting at Harry and shaking a finger in a condescending fashion. "So formal, Potter. Really. Such tenacity. Call me Draco; I'll never answer to anything else, and you'd better get used to it, since you're going to be here quite a while." 

  
_Author's Note_: 

Love and cookies to Savidana of **dead-muse-rising.org**, who beta-read this fic and encourages me with such kindess I could kiss her. You're fabulous, girl! You don't know how truly great your help has been these past few weeks. 

Thanks to the very talented artist, Sidhë, who drew two wonderful pictures for "The Spirit Room." Here is the beautiful piece of bruised Harry from chapter one: **HarryPotterRealm.com/webmistress/images/bruised_harry.jpg**. ::cries:: He looks so sad and far away; just the way I wanted him to be. "Death Eater" Draco from this chapter: **HarryPotterRealm.com/webmistress/images/deathEater_draco.jpg**, which also looks wonderful and I'm off to glomp Sidhë now. 


	4. Left of Center

Author's Note: Thanks to Savidana of dead-muse-rising.org for beta-reading this story and supporting me. Kudos to Naadi Moonfeather, who is writing the beautiful Harry/Draco fic _Checkmate_ for her continuous love and advice. And, of course, Amanda, who hounds me about this story every day. 

* * *

_Spirit Room_

  
**Chapter Four: Left of Center**

The third man smiled bitterly at the sight before him. Through the old door, magically transparent from the hall and mostly opaque from the room, the boy who lived with the cursed name of Harry Potter was curling himself into what warmth was left over from his last sleep in the bed. It was obvious he hated the bed - the wretched bed - but this man's smile grew, as he knew it would ultimately become Potter's sanctuary. He watched the boy, silently, slowly gliding into a deep, draught-instigated slumber. Harry was alone, cold, confused, and utterly surrounded, and every one of his accomplices knew he knew it. 

This capture was one a person dreams of only in nightmares; the ones where only despair is eminent and no matter how hard you try to convince yourself it isn't real, it very much is and there is no escape. No escape but your own mind, and Harry Potter's mind had already been fouled, polluted by thoughts that only helped increase his dissemination into hopelessness and despondency. His will was no longer strong and the said third man of this conspiring group who had whisked the midnight-haired boy from a mad life into a madhouse was well aware of this fact. 

"He has been far more warped than I could have thought possible," he had told his friend softly, earlier that evening, worried the boy might awaken. A dreamless sleeping potion did not always work for long on those who dreamed too much, and not too far in time later that conjecture had been proven correct in this boy. "Far more than we could ever do." 

"All the better to bring him back and work on him then." 

"He will resist us, that is a certainty. He fought that night in June - no matter how much he believes he didn't, no matter how much the Dark Lord wants him to believe he didn't - and he will fight again, no matter how ineffectively he works to achieve his means. He will fight until there is nothing left and then there will be not a thing remaining for us." 

"That is something we cannot have," said his friend gravely, eyes rising to the look at the small, teenage body stretched out on the bed, displaying a very vulnerable young man for the eyes of anyone to see and almost welcoming mutilation, defacement . . . "He is far too weak for any contact, with the Lord or otherwise." 

"Harry Potter must be strong," said the first man callously, interrupting them. The third man stepped back to give him room to speak and also to begin taking his leave of the chamber cell. "His strength gives them hope and dying a weak little boy will destroy the masses." His anger was blatant upon the first man's face, nostrils flaring, but the corners of his mouth twitched with the beginnings of an indulgently sadistic grin. "It will hurt them all the more if he dies strong. A resilience . . . such as his, broken? Pandemonium and chaos are likely to follow and the Dark Lord will have what he wishes." 

"All in good time," snapped the second man, glaring at the trespasser of the chamber cell. "The blood?" 

"I collected enough blood to last a lifetime." A slight smile quirked on the man's lips. "Well, maybe not _his_." 

"And the wounds?" The third man glanced at the bed and the other two followed his gaze, but the boy lay still in his bed. 

"His injuries are far beyond my reach," said the first man, turning back to the conversation. "We must let the wounds heal on their own." 

"I thought you had healed them all together," replied the second, fury slowly entering his quiet voice. "He - " 

"The salve on his back cleaned and closed the wounds," the third man said in a mediating tone, stepping halfway through the magic barrier of the door. 

"You said you wanted him pristine?" the first man was sneering, eyes hooded and fixed upon the second man, disregarding the third completely. "He will not scar, I have assured that. Helping to close the cuts and clot the blood was simply all I did. I will apply an additional concoction later, but he must heal naturally; magic save a simple potion on such a butchery would have most certainly left disfigurement in its wake. The same for his blasted mind, unless you want him to be as irrational and barking mad as the Longbottoms. We must let all good things come in time . . . no one wants him marred . . . yet . . ." 

The second man was coughing out a jagged laugh, but the third man's sharp eyes caught movement in the bed and a loud moan escaped the boy's cracked, dry lips. In very short steps, the three men were across the room and each began to pull objects from their belts. The second man produced a glass, pushing the boy back on the bed quickly thereafter, and the other two swiftly mixed ingredients together, stirring even as they brought the glass to the boy's mouth, forcing it gently against his lips once the potion was complete. 

When he was asleep, the three man straightened and regarded him coolly. 

"He will be discomfited with pain for some days." The one speaking raised his eyebrows in amusement as he traced a finger along the sleeping Harry Potter's spine, showing the others what he meant. Dark, furious lines in mismatched patterns completed an unruly map of unwarranted torment they could only hope to conquer before their eyes. The boy shuddered and the man slowly drew back his hand. He looked at his accomplices. "Best not to beat him anytime soon. For a while, anyway." 

"We should bring Draco in before he wakes again," said the third man, staring down at the sleeping boy taking in deep but shuddering breaths. 

"Give him a good mind lickin' while he's down, eh?" The first man grinned, looking wickedly pleased. "Should be interesting to watch." 

"You aren't watching them," snapped the second man. "Not a single one of our group is going to do that." 

"Yes," the third man replied promptly, smiling ruefully at the first man whose smirk had been replaced with an irritated scowl. "Draco works best when he doesn't have an audience. He can be much more malicious that way." 

"Young master Malfoy is rather talented at getting under one's skin." 

"To obtain the desired responses from Mr. Potter, the boy should have the one _person_ who can." The speaker smirked triumphantly, self-congratulatory. "Draco is truly the son for which any father could possibly ask." 

"I am not sure this is such a fine idea anymore," said the second man with surprising abruptness. 

"Why not?" asked the third crossly, taken sorely aback. He narrowed his eyes, which were replete with suspicion. 

The second man shifted his weight uncomfortably. "I -" 

"I was about to leave, but I'm staying to hear this excuse," the third man growled dangerously. "What is it, _old friend_? Don't think Draco Malfoy can handle _Harry Potter_?" 

There was a very long silence, before - 

"How long will he be with the boy?" 

"Oh, my friend," came the reply laced with deceptive rapture, "there in lies the beauty. Draco will be with him as his companion, his adversary, and his access to the outside world - his very _necessity_, 'til the end. Until the very end. And that, in itself, may be the thing to break him." 

* * *

Harry's hands began to tremble on the pillow and he clenched his fingers to stop them, but Draco Malfoy took no notice of all this, perhaps was unconcerned, and regained his uncharacteristically cheerful manner. He rose gracefully from the bed, smiling with his omnipresent arrogance, and swept over to the stained, worn, and overtly pea green armchair. In a move Harry never would have believed he'd ever see, or had ever occurred, Malfoy plopped down in the large chair. He let himself sink deeply into it so that he merely appeared small and dangerous, as opposed to large and simply overpowering, shifting slightly until he was - _comfortable_. The boy had to raise his arms almost parallel to his ears, but he didn't seem to mind and settled his elbows on the big round arms of the chair. 

Harry goggled at him, head lifted just above his folded hands resting on the pillow. He was unsure as of what to think and sure that this was all meant to be menacing in some twisted, callous way. Warning signals went off and blared wildly in his mind. 

"So, Harry," said Malfoy, still smiling. "How was your summer?" 

Silence traced its way into the walls, but the look on Malfoy's face was never deterred for even a moment. After waiting several minutes for an answer, he continued as if Harry had answered in a very long but eloquent way, or in a fashion he would only have used whilst speaking to a close friend. "Well, I'm very glad to hear that. I was worried you might not be having a good holiday, living with those Muggles and all. What has Granger been doing? Still keeping that reporter locked in a jar, is she? Well, to each his own. Father and I have been doing a great many things together. He has been taking me to his office every few days; says he wants me to get involved in the family business." 

If it was possible, Malfoy's smile grew even larger and he paused a moment to revel in this thought. "Mother and I traveled to France two weeks ago, and we stayed in Lyon for a while. And Paris! The City of Lights! Of Love! Le Rivre Seine! We're old friends, now, I think. The Louvre, the magic part, of course, was spectacular, as usual. Muggles don't know what they're missing; you could spend a week underneath the Pyramide du Louvre and still only be in the exhibits on David le Dingue. Speak French, Harry? _Comment allez-vous, Monsieur Potier? Ça va? Où est toi tête ce matin? N'es-tu pas intelligent? Parlez-vous anglais?_" 

Harry couldn't drag his eyes away from the evil incarnate child in front of him rattling off words of perfect nonsense - most of them anyway; he at least perfectly understood that he was being mocked. Harry blinked and swallowed, also not able make himself speak or understand. 

"What, Potter?" The smile disappeared into a slight, bemused frown. "Didn't learn anything from those Beauxbatons last year? I'd have thought you would, at least a little! Being around that Delacour girl all the time. She was part-Veela, right?" Draco didn't even wait for an answer. "I thought she was, but I couldn't be sure. Hopefully she won't be back next year for 'further studies' . . . Had half the male population and several of the girls lolly-gaggling after her half the time. Don't know how our year will pass their O.W.L.'s; all the better for me, I suppose, if everyone is too blind with adulation. Your friend Weasley sure seemed to fancy her, maybe he'll . . ." Malfoy's frown turned into a smile again when he saw Harry wince at the mention of his best friend. 

"Don't worry, Potter, it's not like they're _dead_ or anything." 

"Bastard," Harry croaked, concealing his face in his arms, unable to think coherent thoughts anymore as the jovial, giddy face of Ron Weasley and the clever, secretive smile of Hermione Granger appeared in his mind. The thought of blood spilled from either one of them - his friends, his _family_ - made him sick with guilt. He felt his stomach flip inside out and the bile begin to eat him slowly, painfully from within. 

"What was that, Potter? You've got something in front of your face." 

"You bastard!" Harry ripped the pillow from in front of him and threw it at Malfoy, who caught it effortlessly. His breathing was suddenly more irregular and he felt colour rising in his cheeks, willing back the tears welling in his eyes for the sole purpose that they would keep him from seeing Malfoy as he went to strangle him. "You bloody bastard! You - " 

"One more move off that bed, Potter," said Malfoy in a very dangerous tone, throwing the pillow at Harry who, half off the bed, caught it at waist level. The flaxen-haired boy brandished his wand, waving it at him in warning. The wand emitted Satan-red sparks from the tip and showered over the floor, licking it with tiny balls of fire - extremely bright in the darkness of the room. "And you'll wish you hadn't." 

The blonde hair and pointed pale face bobbing in the black was strangely menacing, and Harry looked away. His eyes widened, mortified; he realized he had uncovered himself in the attempt to pitch himself off the bed at Malfoy. He threw the blanket over his knees, which he drew in and held close to his chest. 

Malfoy smirked at him knowingly. "That's what I thought," he said. His face contorted in thought for a moment, then brightened. "Oh, I almost forgot." He pulled another wand from his robes, his own wand vanishing from sight in a quick sleight of hand. "This is yours, if I'm not mistaken?" 

Harry caught the wand - _his_ wand - with one hand, then looked down at it incredulously. He'd been given back his wand before, once before, and the results had been at best . . . interesting. He clutched it in his fist in bitter memory, closing his eyes as he felt the magic coercing through it, and tossed it aside the next moment. 

Regarding him calmly, Draco pushed himself up from the chair and walked to the end of the bed where the wand was hanging precariously. "You'll want this eventually," he said, picking it up and holding it out to Harry. 

"Why are you giving it back to me?" Harry spat angrily, not looking at him. "I don't want it." 

Draco raised his eyebrows slightly, watching the other boy's emerald eyes flash with fury. "Because you cannot use it anyway, and what is it of use to me? You'll take better care of it than anyone else can and no, I don't have any inclination that you'll snap it. At least, I hope not." He tucked the wand back in his pocket when Harry glared at him, daring him to hand the wand over to see what he'd do. 

"Be careful what you wish for," Harry replied, the coldness of his words rumbling in his chest. 

"I'd be careful for what _you_ wish for, Potter," Draco snapped, the familiar malevolence returning to his face with quick succession. "Stop your foolishness now. It will help you in the long run." 

"You keep speaking of the future." Harry didn't believe he had much of one. 

Draco's eyes instantly turned a silver black and the black-haired boy gaped as the young Malfoy leaned toward him, stopping only when their faces just inches apart. "Ah, Harry, that is the most magnificent part of this ordeal . . . besides the fact that you are here, of course. The future, I mean to say. In fact, we are in the future at this exact moment and you are mixed, intermingled so deeply into it that your life has been predetermined by forces severely unknown and known to you." 

"Whoever the hell these 'forces' are, they're not going to get me, because I don't even have a future to deal with in the _present_ time," Harry replied, stilling his quaking hands by clasping them around his kneecaps. His head was spinning. 

"The future is now and you will deal with it _now_." Malfoy paused for a moment, collecting himself into a more diplomatic attitude. "I am going to ask you some questions, Harry, and I expect you to answer me truthfully and without hesitation." He straightened and folded his arms over his chest, staring down at Harry unsympathetically. "Do you _understand_?" 

Under the circumstances, Harry nodded, but truly had no comprehension. He felt the weight of his life on his shoulders and wished dearly - and in vain - for his arms, his body, his _mind_ to collapse under the burden. He had no reason to live and these people would help him sing that song with a vivacity Harry would not have even contemplated still remained in his body. Why did the world have to be so abominably cruel? There was no point to life and yet it clearly went on, torturing him at every corner and burning him with every step. 

"I understand," said Harry miserably. "I understand." 

"Excellent. Have you finished your homework?" 

Harry blinked at him. "_What?_" 

"Answer yes or no to every question and explain if I ask you to, Harry. It's as simple as that. Your homework for Hogwarts - is it done?" 

"N - no." 

"Any of it?" 

"No." 

"Why not?" 

"Uncle Vernon . . ." Harry shifted uncomfortably, lowering his gaze. 

"I see," Draco mused, raising his pale eyebrows. "Have you spoken with any of your friends?" 

"No." 

"Seen anyone outside your immediate family?" 

"Yes . . ." 

"Who?" 

"Random passersby," Harry said slowly, unsure what to make of these inquiries. 

"Splendid. Been out of the house much?" 

"No." 

"Heard any good music?" 

"Yes." 

"Written many letters?" 

"Yes." 

"To whom?" 

"Hermione and you." 

Draco was silent for a moment. "I see. Just the two?" 

"Yes." 

"Received any mail?" 

"No." 

"Planted a flower?" 

". . . No." 

"Caught a butterfly?" 

"No. . . ." 

The questioning went on like this for over twenty minutes. Malfoy stood there in the same position, never once wavering, asking questions that seemed haphazard and unsystematic but were probably not, when Harry reflected upon the conversation several weeks later. He asked Harry about the weather ("Did it snow while I was in Bordeaux? Any shooting stars?"), wondered about the blooming time of nightshade under black oak trees at the half-moon (of which Harry certainly had no idea), and other peculiar or casual topics. Malfoy also demanded to know what books he'd read and received a short list of Muggle classics that had been stored under his bed from Dudley's last birthday, and if he'd done any magic, to which Harry had no explanation when asked why he hadn't, besides the obvious fact of it being illegal. Malfoy simply went on when he was not supplied an answer. 

Harry was replying to the questions so monotonously they almost became a second nature. Part of his mind registered the questions and could remember their responses, but the rest and majority of him was running things over in his head. He could try getting past the door, perhaps valiantly fighting to his death instead of letting people like Malfoy pick him apart as he was right then. He was so blind to the words of the boy that he only half-heard himself listlessly say yes to a particularly vicious question, which was the cause of the fracture in his stupor. 

"Did your uncle mistreat you?" 

He looked up suddenly, tearing away his eyes from where they'd settled on some imperceptible point on the far wall. 

Draco's face was set in a hard expression, scrutinizing Harry's reaction - face turning paler than usual, eyes dark and hooded, fearful of the answer he'd just given and the consequences behind doing so - with the utmost detail. "What else did your uncle do to you?" 

"Why do you want to know?" Harry hissed through gritted teeth, feeling exponentially more vulnerable than before. He turned his face away. "It was nothing." 

"_Nothing?_" Malfoy bellowed. He snatched Harry's wrists, and, shoving most of the blankets to the wayside, twisted his arms around so they could both clearly see the insides of Harry's bony arms. Instead of pale flesh, they could both see long, red and angry scratches leading from just above the crooks of his elbows to the skin just below Malfoy's hands gripping his wrists. "_This_ is nothing!" He shoved Harry away from him in disgust. 

Harry cowered, but was too used to screaming to do much more than await a blow. 

"You sick, twisted fool! What the hell is the matter with you? Letting a _Muggle_ do _that_ - _all that_ - to you! Aren't you a wizard? Don't you have at least _some_ magical abilities?" Draco's face was flushed and he was raving furiously, pacing back and forth in front of Harry. "It's not like the Ministry would have said anything to you - being you, of course, and for the fact that he would have deserved death for fouling up a wizard, even if it happens to be the infamous Harry Potter!" 

Not saying anything, Harry absently traced one of the slowly fading lines with a finger, trying to clear his blurring vision. 

"You let him do that to you, did you?" Malfoy snarled, stopping in front of his captive and glowering down at him. "Did you _like_ it? Did it make you feel resilient? Less involved? Less responsible for your own actions? You must be more insane than ever. Beat you like you were a dog - a _mongrel_ - I can't _believe_ you - " 

"Nothing more than what Lord Voldemort will do to me!" Harry shouted, jumping to his feet and nearly knocking a very surprised Malfoy over in the process. "Less, even! But I thought I might as well prepare for it all the same!" 

Draco's astonishment quickly left his face. "_Touché_." Although he was somewhat shorter than his rival, he seemed to breathe stature and importance, and towered over the boy blessed with eyes made of precious emeralds and hair kin of the night. His own evening sky eyes flickered down Harry's body, which was not a foot away from him, stopping below his waist. "Might want to cover yourself up, Potter, can't have a breeze and a conversation at the same time comfortably." 

His eyes sparkled as Harry's eyes widened but he couldn't budge, riveted to the spot. "In fact, why don't you just get dressed? I don't need to see that again for a while." He leered nastily at Harry, then brushed past him and walked to the end of the bed. Harry seized the bed sheets at this moment and draped them around his waist. 

Malfoy picked up a pile of folded clothing Harry had failed to notice was there and tossed the parcel, tied loosely together with string, into his hands. "The lavatory. Five minutes, or I'll get someone to help you." He smirked as he watched Harry hurry across the room and into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him. 

When Harry emerged from the toiletry a few minutes later he appeared slightly less ill, water droplets glistening in his starry-sky hair from washing his face, but he was obviously very embarrassed. Harry was dressed in loose, expensive slacks of crushed ebony velvet with black silk socks and a virgin-white silken blouse with several missing buttons from the collar down. He wrapped his arms around his middle and tried not to meet the other boy's gaze, finding it impossible. 

Malfoy looked impressed, appraising him from head to toe leisurely. "Well, Potter, if this wasn't such an interesting and difficult situation, I'd probably jump on you right now." His eyes glittered like sapphires and Harry felt he could see every inch of them, down to the deepest dark of his scrutinizing pupils, despite standing twenty feet away from the other boy. 

Reddening, and probably more self-conscious than he had been even naked, Harry glared back at him. "Where are my robes?" he asked quietly. 

"Oh, those?" said Draco, waving a hand impatiently. "We threw those tatters away." 

"_What?_" 

"These are some of _my_ - old - clothes," Draco was saying, ignoring Harry's incredulity. "Couldn't have you wandering around in school dress or those Muggle rags, Harry, I would have thought you'd have known that. Too rough for that back of yours, anyway. You'd never heal. I think they suit you nicely." 

"Can't have anyone looking _bad_ in your clothes, eh, Malfoy?" 

Draco's eyes narrowed coldly. "Call me by my first name, or you'll be out of those clothes faster than you got in them and living out of a sheet. Interested in that, _Potter_? I have no interest in biding my time with you and being called 'Malfoy' for the rest of my goddamned life." 

Harry said nothing. "Well, now that that's settled," said Draco loudly, clapping his hands together, "we can get down to business. Are you hungry?" 

Harry's stomach gave a loud lurch when it abruptly remembered food and Draco chuckled softly. He pulled out his wand and pointed it at the trunk set in front of the bed. "I think that answered my question. _Ouverte. Wingardium Leviosa_." The trunk popped open and a long black dressing gown Harry knew he definitely didn't own unfurled itself from within, floating over to him. He plucked it out of the air before it could be dropped on his head. 

"I would ever so hate Professor Dumbledore trying to get a mute to learn magic," Draco told Harry smugly as he watched the black-haired boy shrug on the robe, tying it securely to his body. Harry was secretly thankful that he'd been given such light, smooth clothing; his wounds would have truly felt much worse than they did if he'd been subjected to something else. "I'll be back; make yourself at home." With that, Draco swept from the room, disappearing right _through_ the wooden door. 

Taking a moment to gawk at the sight of Draco slipping between several panes of wood, shimmering gently as he passed, Harry threw his trunk closed and sank onto it, burying his pounding head in his hands. He stayed in that position until Draco came back. 

"So innocent," Draco murmured, startling Harry out of his despondent musings as he cupped Harry's chin with his free hand, the other holding a bed tray out of reach above his shoulder. He ran a long finger along Harry's jaw and Harry held his gaze, challenging the one in charge with such audacity he was surprised nothing came of it. Draco pulled his hand away slowly and held the tray in front of him. "Now, I'm not sure what you can call this - early tea? Supper, perhaps? Maybe breakfast." 

"What time is it?" 

"Half past noon in the real world," Draco replied offhandedly, giving Harry the tray consisting of several tuna fish sandwiches and a tumbler filled to the brim with milk. "Lunch, then. I'll bring a clock next time I stop by to see you." He gestured at Harry, encouraging him. "Eat. I don't want to see what'll happen if you try to starve yourself." 

Harry ignored these last statements. "What day?" 

"Saturday. The thirtieth of the great month of July in the last fifth year of a decade before the second millennium," said Draco in a self-aggrandizing way, shrugging. "If you forgot. You slept quite a while, but that may have been in part due to the potions we administered every few hours." 

Not encouraged by this intelligence, Harry set the tray on the trunk beside and picked up one of the sandwiches. His eating was slow and deliberate, somewhat nauseous from jumping out of the bed so quickly. He'd strained his back even more and it hurt to move. 

Draco sat in one of the high-backed chairs and took up an old book from the coffee table. He seemed rather engrossed by whatever it was, glancing only occasionally at Harry as he little by little finished off the three sandwiches and gulped down the milk. 

Harry sighed as he placed the now-empty glass back on the tray. His stomach had a dull but comforting pain in it, telling him he was full for the first time in more than a few days, though probably could have done with more. He saw Draco raising an eyebrow at him. 

"Finished, are you?" Draco asked. Harry nodded hesitantly and Draco pointed at the couch in front of him. "Then come sit down and join me." 

When Harry sat down on the edge of the couch directly in front of the blond boy, Draco closed the book carefully and let it stay in his lap. He had curled his legs under his knees like a child, but he regarded Harry in such a way that Harry thought his soul might be exposed to the universe. 

He was vaguely aware something was sailing through the air at him and he caught it the second before it would have smashed on the floor, now smoothed, polished wood again. It was a bar of Honeydukes chocolate, the wrapper half peeled back invitingly. He tested its weight in his hand a little, wondering what he should do with it. Finally, he allowed himself a small bite and a familiar warmth soared down his throat like a falcon rising upon a great thermal - chocolate must be a magical creation, he decided - flapping its wings through the exhilarating clouds of a perfect world. 

But Harry was nowhere near a perfect world. Very much closer to hell than ever to utopia. And he knew it much too well. 

He opened his eyes and looked at Draco as passively as he could. "Am I supposed to thank you?" 

"What did I tell you about speaking out of turn?" Draco asked with an icy tone. He rolled his eyes, turning back to the volume to find his page. "Yes, to answer your question, if you must. I do not expect it." 

Harry was silent for a moment as he watched Malfoy begin his reading of the old text again, then rolled lengthwise onto the couch and closed his eyes. He allowed his back to relax against the cushions, pushing away the throb of the healing scars and roughness of angered skin. Folding his hands on top of his stomach, he sighed. 

There was something serene about being in the presence of his greatest enemy. The boy did not seem to want to talk anymore and Vernon Dursley was nowhere near him, which he forced himself to admit was good. Harry thanked his lucky stars - all of which he could not see - for this small mercy surrounded by horrors impossible yet to fathom. He willed himself to sleep, to float away from himself; his carcass was tired and dead to the world, and he sensed the pull of dreamland at his pounding, pulsing brain. 

A cool, damp cloth dropped onto his forehead and Harry's eyes flew open with a start of not unwelcome surprise. Draco was not looking at him, replacing his wand in a pocket within his druid-like robes. He returned to his book, never once glancing Harry's way. He'd obviously summoned it from the bathroom. 

"Don't fall asleep," said Draco, still not looking at Harry, obviously more interested in the book. "You need to get back on schedule. I am not coming here to find you asleep everyday because you stayed awake all night. I have my own life to deal with, much less your own dreary one, and I am going to make sure our interaction is beneficial." 

_Damn it_, Harry cursed silently to himself. This was going to be more difficult than he thought. They were going to pry him apart and thus kill him slowly. Can't anyone be merciful anymore? 

"I don't know anything - " Harry began. 

"Well, that is certainly obvious," Draco said, snapping his book shut. His eyes, sharp and dark, were now fixated on Harry. "That is why my duty for the next few weeks is to teach you all you need to know." 

"I can't -" 

"Can't _what_, Potter?" Malfoy rose from his seat and tucked the book under his arm. "Can't learn? You can't _relearn_ all that was taught to you in the last four years at Hogwarts? You should at least have some memory for _some_ of it, or this will be very interesting for the both of us." 

"But I -" 

"You are going to know _everything_ by the time I get through with you. Understand? For shit's sake, you don't know anything. One can only imagine why you think that. You should know everything!" 

"Wait one second, I don't -" 

Malfoy's face contorted in anger. "What do you _really_ want to say to me?" 

Harry stared at him from the couch. "I don't know what you're talking about." 

"It's not obvious? I'm your _tutor_," Draco sneered. He sounded disgustingly pleased with himself. "I'm going to teach you magic again, revive you. Don't be such a Squib, Harry. It's really not becoming. At the end of this, you will be as strong as you ever were and you'll lick my bloody toes for it." 

". . . _What?_" Harry asked, dumbfounded. He couldn't believe his ears. 

The smirk on Draco's face remained as he spoke. "We can't have you do nothing while you're with us, Harry. That would completely defeat the point of this exercise. You seemed to have pushed away everything and I'm going bring it all back. I will be tutoring you until such time you have returned to a satisfactory stage of wizarding potential. Do you understand?" 

"No," said Harry, half-lying. "Not at all." 

"You'll be a wizard again, Harry, you see? You've turned Muggle, trying to forget. You can't tell me it's not true, for you know it all too well." Malfoy probably would have waited hours for his nemesis to speak; it was a long time before he did. 

"I don't want to fight," said Harry softly. 

"Then don't," Draco replied simply. 

  
**For the Francais impaired:**   
Draco says mockingly to Harry in French: "How are you doing, Mr. Potter. How are you? Where is your head this morning? Are you not intelligent? Do you speak English?" Mocking in the obvious way, and in the form of using two different forms of "you." The personal "tu" and the formal "vous." 


	5. Who Wants to Be Ordinary?

_Rating:_ R 

_Summary:_ After going back to the Dursleys at the end of his fourth year and the Triwizard Tournament, Harry is abused by his uncle. He quickly falls into despondancy and despair. When he believes nothing can possibly get worse, three dark figures appear on the doorstep of 4 Privet Drive. 

**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J. K. Rowling. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. It's just fan fiction! 

_Author's Note:_ Very happy thank-yous to my beta-reader, Savidana, who runs the wonderful slash site Dead Muse Rising. She has been so supportive of this story and way too nice to me. Love to Beanie who also beta-ed, and hugs to Amanda and Aileen who make me smile every day.   


* * *

**Chapter Five: Who Wants to Be Ordinary?**

Draco Malfoy stepped through the doorway, barring Harry Potter from the real world and permitting him into the magic world. A broad grin was splashed upon his pale face. He would never get over the fact he had _Harry Potter_ under his thumb. He could probably put it under one of biggest achievements of his life - to date, anyway. 

It would be wrong and premature to assume this undertaking would be his only accomplishment. It was also _immature_ to use clichés or childish threats when dealing with his charge. His father certainly wouldn't approve. His face soured into a scowl. Thinking that sort of thing - and especially voicing it - only gave his father more reason to scythe away, with pleasure, at Draco's maturity and intelligence, reducing him to heaps of dust and dried blood. 

A shrouded figure approached him from the dark entrance of the hall and he walked to meet them. "Did he attempt to injure you?" asked a severe male voice coming from the dark hood in his robes. 

"Only twice," Draco replied, waving the man off and brushing by him. There were more important things to do than talk to whoever this man was. "More than I thought he would; surprised me a bit." He stopped when a cold hand dropped heavily on his shoulder from behind and shook his head. "It's not as if he could possibly do anything to me." 

The man's grip tightened painfully upon his shoulder. "Did he take his wand?" 

Draco twisted away from the hand and whirled around. "No, of course not. Did you truly expect him to take it?" he hissed, glowering at the ashen figure. "Take that damned hood down." 

"Why?" The man smiled maliciously at him. "Scared you can't see my eyes?" 

Shifting from one foot to another, suddenly uncomfortable, Draco opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted - and saved, somewhat - by another voice. "Well, Draco, how well did your first session with the boy go?" 

"He seems to be regarding his position rather flippantly," the first man said in a cold voice, staring at the boy in front of him. "Young master Malfoy displays his insolence, and perhaps his treachery, by not explaining exactly what happened in that room. I am not sure he understands the importance, or gravity, of his job." 

"Neither do I," agreed the light-haired man, glaring down at Draco. Draco bowed his head, avoiding the gazes of both men. "Are you going to tell us what happened in there or will we have to _force_ it out of you, young man?" 

"Painfully, I might add," said the other man. 

Draco raised his head and looked at the man addressing him, staring into his light eyes. "I am going home," he said pointedly. "I will have my report to you in the morning." 

"That you had better," snarled the first man. "I don't expect this kind of behaviour again." 

With a reproachful but sobered look at each man, Draco stalked down the hallway and disappeared. When they were certain he was out of earshot, the two men walked to the door to Harry Potter's room and peered in. 

"It is good we took him when we did," said the light-haired man. 

"Very true. However, what of the Weasley family? What have you written to explain why he will not be . . . _visiting_ them this summer?" 

"He's writing something with Draco's help," replied the light-haired man, tossing his head toward the rooms in the house beyond the antechamber. "They will send something out tomorrow evening after Draco speaks with Mr. Potter in the morning. Draco, I believe, will also have the boy compose his own apologies for not seeing them this summer." 

"Potter will periodically have to write his friends and godfather letters, you know," the first man said, a faint smirk rising on his lips as he reflected upon the situation. "We can't have them wondering if anything is wrong; they might come looking. Previous conflicts have those two running after him like lovesick mongrels looking for a prized bone." 

The light-haired man laughed shortly. "Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley," he mused more to himself than his ominous companion. "Sensible scholar and reckless collaborator. Followers in every excursion no matter the danger. Best friends a product like Harry Potter could ever dream for; it really is too bad they won't be able to help him through this. I'm sure they would want to . . . Oh, well." 

"The owl will want to see him at one point," the first man continued, ignoring his lighter-coloured cohort, "and those damned creatures can see through any glamour or transfiguration. If it thinks something is wrong, it might alert those two or even Albus Dumbledore in some way. We could have the Ministry knocking on our very doorsteps if they were to get involved. The bird must not be able to warn them. What do you propose to do if that was to happen?" 

"When we come to that river, we shall cross it. The same with any other problems." 

"In the deadliest way, I presume. I do not want to be disappointed." 

"Of course," said the third man, smiling at the sad little boy sitting before his eyes, experiencing the worst misery of his life. "How ever else?" 

* * *

Having told Harry to get out his books and start reading from the beginnings of his fourth year - and after giving his greatest adversary a very triumphant smirk - Draco had departed with the empty food tray. Left alone to wallow in self-pity and the like, Harry had dragged himself into a sitting position and crossed his legs on the couch, holding the damp washcloth in his hand listlessly. He didn't want to move, felt there was no point in doing such a thing. 

What he could gather from sifting through the conversations with Malfoy was that they knew much more than they were letting on, at least directly. Indirectly, he was being laughed at and mocked, for they knew all - or expected greatly to know all they needed, before long. These were patient people; Harry's time spent with them in the past had let him become well aware of that fact. They could do whatever the hell they wanted and it didn't matter how long it took them, now that he was literally in their reach. He just didn't know when or how. 

And the clothes he'd been given. . . . Just like the bed, he was dressed in black and white. Colours of life and death, of Light and Dark, of innocence and adulteration, of sin and virtue. The black velvet of the slacks shielded his legs from the dungeon-like atmosphere, kept him warm within the cold. The white silken chemise was loose, icy, and superficial, and bared him to the world, while the dressing gown sheltered him, kept him close to the dark and the warmth. 

Harry felt a stab at his soul in this stroke of blatant hostility. 

He tugged absently at the collar of the black silk robe enveloping him, trying to cover more of his chest, partly exposed because of the missing buttons he was certain had been taken off on purpose. There was definitely symbolism in the garments, or at least Harry could see an unconscious double meaning written into the smooth fabrics like the ancient runes of the doorframe, writhing through them like agitated serpents on their way to feast. 

Certain things were for sure, though; it was a definite that he would be spending at least the summer here, locked in this chamber. That was a fact, at least to the extent of his knowledge. Then he would either be killed or moved to another undisclosed location. He was to live among them like a slave, or perhaps, in better terms, like a zoo animal, watched greedily and prodded with sticks, whilst being humiliated every moment of the day. He also was to get back in the habit of practicing magic. 

Harry flung the rest of the chocolate bar on the table in front of him. 

_Why in the darkest of worlds would they want me doing that?_ he wondered angrily, ignoring the crack resonating around the room of the chocolate snapping in two. There was positively no reason for it, unless they wanted him to fight Lord Voldemort again. The man had seemed pretty adamant about dueling him only a month before; Harry had figured it out without being told that move was to show power over him. It had probably only been a set back that Harry had miraculously gotten away. 

Perhaps they also wanted to mock him. They wanted to show him that he was under their control, that they were the ones that could bring him back to life - perhaps not to one he wanted, but a life all the same. They wanted to illustrate the point he was under their control and they could have him do as they pleased. And what they pleased was using him as much as possible and bringing him back to magic, of which he had felt himself wanting, _needing_ to forget. 

Harry had given up magic for just over a month, but to his psyche it felt like years - he might have even been inclined to say at one point that he felt like _nothing_ magical had ever happened in his life. That had come up in the last few days, especially, as Vernon Dursley gave him his "early birthday presents," but that belief definitely wasn't a reality when he was sitting in the middle of a magical nightmare. 

The enchantment of wizardry, of life, had run out the night he watched Cedric Diggory die at his feet. _It_ had died with his heart and his innocence. Had been crippled, emaciated, slain with the utmost brutality when he had awoken in the hospital wing mornings after that fateful night . . . when he actually for once understood the true meaning of this departure inside him, ripping him away from the spiritual world and plowing him head first into the land of the dead and dying. 

It was in here that at least he could have found some solace. In here, he might have found peace. To remember that other's lives weren't tangible and certainly neither was his, where he could have disappeared. But no. He was torn back into the current of the magical world by these abominations of creation, whose only will was to serve the Dark Lord and feed him his most desired prized. They cared nothing for him, but he didn't expect them to. 

Harry didn't want to battle Voldemort again. He had not the strength nor the will to do such a thing, as told himself numerous times, trying unsuccessfully to forget another brutal image. Yet his thoughts and attempts did nothing to try to ebb the pictures floating before him, knowing what would come would truly come. He could not go on. He, the boy who had survived, could see himself surrendering, giving up life for death. All because of his misery, which they had willingly and laughingly dropped upon him like heavy, smothering stones, promising his slow, unsightly death. Conceding to a cause he loathed but accepted all the same. 

They all probably knew this, craved the day it would come. 

Harry closed his eyes and willed himself to breathe normally. 

Maybe he just wouldn't learn, wouldn't practice - wouldn't fight. He could let himself waste away; what could they possibly do? Force food down his throat? Vomiting could easily be self-induced. He'd seen that enough with Aunt Petunia, whose fingertips all had little scars on them. Scars were petty next to torture and if he could get life over with quickly enough . . . 

But things were not so simple, as they never were. What, truly, was better? To die fighting, even if forced against his will, or die a sickly coward amidst his own vomit and bile, and really his own self-pity? At this juncture in his life, there were two sides of the coin and neither was very pretty. 

For four years, almost five now, Harry had been forced to live with the fact the wizarding world looked up to him as their saviour. The Boy Who Lived, the one who had chased He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named from their lives when he was just a baby. When he could distinguish nothing save for pain and comfort (which was as it seemed again now). He'd existed with the anguish of knowing he was famous and that everyone knew - or thought they knew - exactly who he was. They loved him, doted on him, granted him favours and the like, and most turned their heads away if he did something for which a "normal" person would surely be punished. They also hated him. 

All of his previous failures in their bloody eyes were trivial, if not forgotten, but he remembered their reactions with a lust for blood not his own, nor his worst enemies. He wanted to strangle, sink his nails into their fleshy throats and suck out the life force and the disgust they were able to carry within them shamelessly. 

They hated him because he was so different from everyone else. People wanted to believe he was just like they were, but it had been obvious since that fateful Halloween he was unlike anyone else. It wasn't his fault, but no one cared. He'd saved them, but he was cursed. Cursed to forever be in front of their prying eyes and scrutinized for things he had no knowledge of until it was too late to cover it up. 

He hated them for hating him, which was always the case if anything odd occurred around him. The realization of his talents with the language of snakes immediately made people regard him as a parasite upon society, letting their ridiculous prejudices drip like a punctured fruit from the infamous apple tree. Anything that went wrong could be blamed on him, because he was a _Parselmouth_. He loathed the word, spitting it out like a curse. 

The Tri-Wizard Tournament turned them all against him and they didn't look back once. If they did remain friends with him, they never believed he didn't enter himself. It mattered not what the rest of the wizarding world thought; they were ecstatic to see the wonder boy - _Up, up and away_, Harry thought dully - involved in the biggest event since the last Tri-Wizard Tournament. But they, too, latched onto gossip the way a leech clasps onto flesh. 

He had been lucky to have the support and belief of Hermione, Sirius, and some of the Hogwarts staff, or he probably wouldn't have gotten through it. Better than he did, anyway. 

It had only been when Voldemort - there! that _name_, that _man_ again! always him! - had taken him was that he was forgiven. Perhaps not even then. Perhaps it he was only forgiven, and by very few, for not many knew the truth, when he arrived back on the platform in the Quidditch Pitch. With Cedric Diggory's limp body in his arms, hands clutching a foolish wooden stick and a mass of ugly metal, both of their dead corpses bloody and soaked with dry tears. 

He wondered absently if he would have returned to Hogwarts that coming term as the hero, rather than the murderer many had accused him quietly of being. He almost hoped it would have been the latter. 

Fickle as society always is, though, they could forgive him for his sins over which he had no control, and the wizard community always did - mainly because they were shameful of their petty gossip and jeers, but would never outwardly admit it. It might always be so until he was no longer there to be glorified as the saviour of the people. 

Harry bit his tongue and drew blood, relishing in the grounding pain. 

They looked upon him like the Israelites looked upon Moses, at least in the early years. His death would be analogous to the forty years lost in the desert, allowing his followers to stray as he bided his time in the forgotten hills of time. If he died at the hands of Lord Voldemort, which was surely to be at this point, faith in the Light would be lost within the ensuing whirlpool of panic and chaos. That was for certain; but the trillion-pound, most daunting question of all was most certainly this: how _far_ would faith be lost? 

Harry's head pounded at this question and he kneaded his forehead with his fingers, staring at the floor without shedding tears. The wizarding world, and perhaps the _whole_ world if it ever got to that point, had several ways of falling head first into madness and despair over the death of Harry Potter. 

Death scenario number one was Harry fighting to the death. Could this be counted as chivalrous? Would this fill the ending part of the hackneyed motto ". . . or die trying"? It might send the message that although Harry _didn't_ live this time, he still fought for the side of good, for the Light, and didn't stop. But the flipside of this, and maybe concurring with the former argument, could very well be the feeling of: "The Boy battled Him, and lost. So, then, if You-Know-Who can kill Harry Potter, who _can't_ he kill?" This belief had the foresightedness mixed deeply within in it of people running to join Voldemort in truckloads so they wouldn't lose their lives - which was selfish and really not so in numerous ways. 

But this is what the Dark Lord wanted more than anything. He'd tried already to get at Harry and break the heart of the wizarding community once before. 

The other scenario of Harry killing himself was just tragic - perhaps, though, not so much for him in general as the rest of society. He would die in shame, wondering if his friends and family ever survived, but it would all the same be over with and he would never be forced to live another moment in the terrible sphere of his wretchedness. As for the world? Heh, well, the sorrow and agony that would run rampant through the wizarding world was far too conceivable for Harry. 

There was nothing good that could come of his suicide. He would be hated, or perhaps regarded sadly. "He took his own way out, for he knew the Dark Lord would get him eventually. Better if we all did the same - take our lives to save our souls or join Him to save our lives." 

It was all disgusting, revolting beyond words, but Harry couldn't bring himself to retch away his life's breath. Breathing may not have been exactly pleasant, but it was preferable to death momentarily, and he could not foresee suicide when he thought of the faces of those he loved. It was far past a fathomable destiny or goal and he closed his eyes. 

What, really, had the world come to where a lonely little boy had to decide how he was going to die just to _think_ he might be able to salvage a small fragment of humanity in doing so? 

Harry's body grew hot and red flashed before his eyelids, interlaced with little white and black flashing stars, flipping the room before him upside down. _Life is never fair! It's never good! It's never normal! Especially never for me. The earth is never kind. Why the hell am I even here? Why am I even me?_ His abruptly revealed, fire-hot irises shot poisonous arrows at the door through which he knew he was being watched. 

He could have sworn he saw a smile appear, faintly but there, in the upper reaches of the door like the ever perverse Cheshire cat. Something straight out of _Alice and Wonderland_ and Harry blinked. The smile disappeared, fading as if the person had stepped away from the door, but he still felt eyes upon him. 

_Insane_, Harry said bitterly to himself, pondering the psychology behind that move. He supposed it delighted them to have him in their midst and he dropped his head into his hands, covering his face with the wet flannel. He considered smothering himself, but lapsed back to his earlier contemplations and thought better of it. 

"All right, Potter," Harry said, speaking into the hand cloth with brevity. "Get off your pathetic arse and do something constructive." _It's not like you'll only be stuck in here a few hours. More like a few sodding years._ He winced as he stood, but steadied himself and started to walk around the couch. 

Draco had instructed him to start reading his books again - good Lord, Harry hoped it would all come flooding back. It would be more than embarrassing for him, even among these people - who, of course, would mock him at every turn anyway - to have forgotten _everything_ about magic. It seemed impossible, yes, to have forgotten four years of intense study, but Harry could not recall (or perhaps he could just not concentrate on) a single spell. He didn't want to, he slowly recognized, nor did he feel an inclination towards anything other than finding a means of escape. 

There was no spirit left inside of him to exercise his magical abilities willingly or otherwise. It had all been lost. 

Wouldn't Hermione and Ron love it if they knew the boy they'd worked so hard helping learn hexes and charms for weeks could convey nothing past his lips even slightly relevant to a conversation or predicament? Wouldn't he fancy to see the look on Professor Dumbledore's face, in his eyes, if he knew his prodigy was a failure, a vanquished hope? Wouldn't his mother and father, who had so gallantly fought for him, twice, be so proud? Wouldn't . . . 

Harry fastened his eyelashes to his cheeks and held clenched fists at his sides, trying to propel away the memories flashing before him. 

Unlike most people, if it couldn't already be perceived, Harry's memories were rarely happy. They detonated in his mind like two magnificent birds thrashing against forces unknown to them, thrusting them forward into the two great edifices of the human sentiency with incredible speed. They easily concealed the smiles and encouragements of his friends, peers, mentors, and teachers. When he was able, blessed to see these things of such beauty and wonder, they were often unbearable because he could not help but feel guilty as his heart warmed, knowing there was a heart - several, in fact - whose beating had stilled because of him, because of who he was inside, where all his memories lay. 

Cedric's shocked face, contorting his handsome features and revealing innocent gray eyes, was forever impressed upon Harry, truly damned in his memory, no matter if he found something to focus on more intently. That is to say, Cedric was a figure sitting in the shadows in front of his eyes, watching what Harry saw. Like a silhouette in a movie theatre, griping at the film before him. He would sit there beside Harry's parents, staring ahead; his parents, grim outlines in the dark, never looked back but Cedric often did. 

At these times, Harry could find himself rousing hastily from unconsciousness after long intervals of misplaced time. Blacking out was oftentimes a way to procure a dreamless sleep, but he hated the means behind it: his imagination and fear united as one, the most twisted coupling he'd come upon yet. 

Cedric's face was always in some form of decay when he let the image play before his eyes, right before he lost touch with the world. Sometimes his face was skeletal, the ghost of his good looks wafting like a heavy mist around his skull. Other times the sallow flesh was hanging from his orifices, sagging and ugly beneath his eyes. He also possessed the strange contrast to Voldemort of having slits in the middle of his face, but perhaps that was because that cartilage had caved in on Cedric's nose, and his lips were always an arctic, deadly blue. On occasions where his mind truly was led astray, Harry had to bear witness to blood leaking from the other champion's ears, nostrils, and pupils . . . as maggots and flies worked their way into him, adulterating the once-perfect skin and the once-perfect boy. 

_Oh, Christ, Cedric_, Harry moaned within his mind, forcing his tearing eyes open to look down at his unlocked trunk. He teetered but was able to collect himself, physically and emotionally, for the time being at least. He was ready to collapse on the bed and sleep for a century or two. Maybe this would all be over by then. 

He crouched in front of the chest and lifted the top, letting it fall onto the edge of the bed. It was true, then. All of his school robes and the extra hand-me-down clothes he hadn't been able to get out - even various pairs of underwear and socks - before Uncle Vernon locked his chest away were all gone. 

Dragging himself to his feet, Harry angrily grabbed a random stack of school tomes and threw them on the bed. Several graded assignments and old notes folded between the pages fluttered about in a ruckus of battered paper. He felt his eyes burn and clenched his teeth, make only a minor effort to calm his torrential breathing. He finally glanced once more at the open trunk, resisting the urge to kick it halfway across the chamber of hell. 

All that made reference to his clothing was his Sneakoscope, which he'd left in a sock until sometime around last Christmas. Even the bottle-green dress robe Molly Weasley had picked up for him the summer before was reveling somewhere in forgotten decadence. He bowed his head, defeated once more, and submitted his soul to the silence of the room. 

~

The lights embedded in the frame above his head seemed to be on a timer, or someone stood outside his chamber door and controlled them from out there. Whatever the situation was, Harry only could comprehend at such an hour that they were extremely bright. He momentarily forgot where he was and pulled the coverlet over his body - he had probably not slept more than five hours - turning over into the pillows as he did. He felt something dig into his side and he squirmed away, grunting impatiently. 

"Give me a few more minutes, Aunt Petunia, s'all I need . . ." 

"Aunt Petunia? I was unaware, Potter, that I so perfectly resemble your mother's sister, even with your glasses off." 

Harry started, hearing the drawling voice of Draco Malfoy in his ear, and his eyes flew open. Draco was standing above him, arms loaded with brown parcels. He looked readily amused and the previous day came washing back. Why did he have to wake from sleep to greet the world so violently? Even the worst of nightmares could sometimes make him get away from and forget true life; why couldn't it just be prolonged? 

"Good morning, sunshine," Draco greeted in a not unfriendly tone. 

"Malfoy," Harry moaned, rolling on his back and rubbing at his face. 

"Draco," said the boy, narrowing his cold eyes. He opened his arms and the parcels tumbled onto the bed in front of Harry. "Happy Birthday, by the way. I trust you were fed last night and I trust you're hungry now." He paused, looking Harry over and settling on the bags underneath his eyes. "Stayed up too late, did we? Well, that's all right, but I wasn't aware an essay on the wizards of the Nordic regions' depository tactics for Professor Binns' class was so intriguing." 

"How -" 

Draco pointed to the right side of the bed. Harry didn't need to turn around to see, suddenly remembering. Unaccustomed to such a large bed, Harry had been residing on the left for the past two or so days and had shoved all of his schoolwork to the right side very early that morning when he'd finally decided to sleep. He had done mindless hours of work he knew he'd never turn in, getting up only once in a while to flex his muscles and stretch so he wouldn't doze off as he laboured against the world. 

"I'm sure it helped you escape," said Draco, obscurely. 

_My sentiments exactly._

"It's also best that you started with that. I don't want you fooling with any _real_ magic unless I or someone else is in the room." He shot his trademark, impish smile towards Harry, obviously finding himself very clever for such an early hour. "There will be no foolish wand waving while I'm about." 

Harry silently watched as Draco reached into the depths of his druid robes - did he ever take them off? - and extended his arm dramatically, rolling his wrist. He was holding out a large orange to the weary orphan. "This will tide you over for a while. I have matter upon which we must speak and I cannot delay." 

Not taking the fruit, Harry looked from the packages, many tied tightly with twine to keep them from bursting open mid-owl flight, then back to the young Malfoy, who was still offering him the orange in an outstretched hand. "What are those?" he asked, glancing at the packages and envelopes piled before him as if they were gold and thus untouchable. 

"Presents," said Draco, dropping the orange unceremoniously onto the bed, "courtesy of all your friends and admirers." He grinned so devilishly at Harry that the dark-haired boy almost believed a crown of horns would burst through the blond's skull at any moment, showering them both in magma-hot blood. "And, of course," he said, pulling out a small object - a clock - "_my_ gift." Malfoy set the little thing on a nightstand that had materialized overnight and tapped it with his wand. 

"Well?" he asked, turning from the currently ticking timepiece to look back at Harry and crossing his arms over his chest. "Aren't you going to open them? See what Weasley bought you - I really could use a good laugh right now." 

Harry's anger could not be controlled. He squeezed his eyes shut and the lights of the bed flashed and rattled ominously. The blond boy's eyes flickered upwards to them, but seemed otherwise unconcerned. The same dispassion remained on his face when Harry was able to somewhat recover and look at him directly. Malfoy smiled odiously at his classmate. 

A single tear broke from its splintering cradle and trickled down Harry's cheek. Malfoy's smile faltered, his countenance dropping into something very near sobriety; for a fleeting moment he looked almost frightened. 

"How dare you," Harry whispered, body shaking with rage, not noticing the change through the blood waltzing before his eyes in tune with the pounding of the wretched muscle within his chest. His hand had unconsciously wrapped around a package addressed to him in Hermione's handwriting and he clenched it in his fist. "You might as well kill me, since you -" 

"You have no idea what you're talking about, Potter," Malfoy hissed, expression once again hard and menacing. "You think you know everything, but you truly have no clue, and neither do your beloved little friends." 

"But . . ." Harry regarded the boy disbelievingly. "You - you don't have them?" 

"No, Mr. Potter, we don't have Miss Granger or Mr. Weasley, or anyone else, for that matter," Malfoy sneered, looking disgusted that Harry insinuated he might have touched a red-headed gob like Weasley. He rolled his eyes. "Why would we want them?" 

". . . when you have me." Harry's heart gave a spasm mixed with relief and sorrow. 

The blond simply beamed at him. "Catching on quickly, Potter. Twenty points to Gryffindor for an unexpected display of intelligence." He removed one hand from its position against his chest and motioned to the parcels, eyes never parting from Harry's own. "Might as well open them, Harry. You have nothing better to do." 

Draco sighed when Harry didn't move, seeming to concede something. "I suppose the pressing matters will have to wait. Any particulars for breakfast? The house elves make a scrumptious sausage and egg quiche, or would you like some kippers?" He was answered with a stony silence. "I suppose, then, you'll have to live with what I get you." He strolled evenly from the room, smiling all the way. Even as he, in a true Malfoy faux pas, picked up the slightly crumpled shirt and slacks laid carefully over the back of the couch and folded them in his hands as he left, the smile remained on his face. 

Taking a deep breath, Harry sat up and crossed his legs in front of the mind-torturing presents set before him on the bed. With a forced calm, he lifted the hand that had wrapped around one of Hermione's - several? - packages during the bizarre discourse of late and put it heavily in his lap. It plagued and broke his heart. The fist was a squashy cylinder shape and had crumpled where he'd gripped it, his nails accidentally ripping through the light packaging to reveal a deep crimson fabric. Biting his lip, Harry tentatively pushed back the rest of the brown paper. 

"Socks?" Harry murmured to no one in particular, with some surprise. He pulled apart the socks from their bundle and raised them to the light to inspect them. One was a blood red colour, almost black, the other was a very dark magenta, and they looked to be the style of socks his house-elf friend Dobby made. Harry placed them back between his crossed legs, not wanting Malfoy to see them for fear not so much of mockery but of confiscation. 

Hermione's other two packages were large, one heavy and rectangular and the other smaller and fastened with twine to its brother. He smiled wistfully as he withdrew a large book from the biggest parcel, entitled _The Werewolf and His Enterprises: A Comprehensive Guide to the Economic Wherewithal of Werewolves in Twentieth Century Warehouses._ Remus Lupin would have been pleased. 

The other gift was a heavy weight on his fingers and he could feel the ornate edges of a picture frame through the coarse paper. He didn't want to know and put it aside, trying not to be too obvious in case someone was, in the most likely event, observing his movements from outside the door. Certain things could definitely go without being seen by any eyes, prying or sorrowful. Harry did not want to cry nor did he want Malfoy to laugh at his pain. 

Numbly, he noticed a thin envelope had fluttered onto the sheets from one of the opened packages - probably the book - and picked it up. It was addressed "Happy Birthday, Harry" in dark blue ink, scrawled a little hastily in Hermione's usually neat handwriting. He vaguely wondered what she was doing to make her write so fast - not even an Arithmancy final made her write that sloppily. The letter, on the other hand, was much easier to read. 

  
_Dear Harry, _

Dobby - ah ha, Harry thought with little triumph - _asked me to forward these to you. Well, he originally gave you a dark red one and a golden one, but I think the second one may be a different colour now; Crookshanks spilled some of my Potions homework on it. I'm very sorry about that. It was still changing colours when I wrapped it, but I'm fairly sure it isn't poisonous. Tell me if anything happens. _

I hope you're enjoying your birthday. The weather is supposed to be grand. Ron wants you to come out to the Burrow soon, but what would you think of coming to my house? You've never been here before and I think you'd like it. My mother said it would be all right for a week or so (my father has no comment at this time, but I'm sure he will enlighten me fairly soon once his blood pressure goes back to normal), and then we can go to the Weasleys' for the rest of holidays. Whatever you want to do, I'm sure it will be an agreeable change to living with your relatives. I hope they weren't too horrible this year. 

By the way, Harry, I found it very odd that Dobby needed me to send the socks for him. He told me when he stopped by - my parents nearly had a fit - that he couldn't contact you. Perhaps one messenger owl could get lost, but two? And they both came back. I decided, however, that Dobby had probably used typically bad messenger owls or had given them the wrong address, and I agreed, of course, to help him. He smelled quite plainly of Butterbeer; it seems he's been a bit depressed lately over the other house-elves' attitudes (I'll tell you everything he said later) and Hedwig always knows where to find you, anyway. 

As it stands now, it's almost midnight and your owl is glaring at me because she is very anxious to leave. She always gets to you pretty early, doesn't she? I think she's going to peck me if I don't close. Do have a good birthday and write back as quickly as you can. 

Love from,   
Hermione 

  
How ironic a simple letter could be, Harry contemplated morosely, refolding the letter and shoving it angrily back in its envelope. He glanced at the "gift" from Draco, twinkling cheerily at him in bright red numbers on the newly conjured nightstand and saw that it was a quarter after nine in the morning. He'd been at this charade for ten minutes already and Malfoy's absence was definitely to be short-lived. 

For fear of this, he quickly opened Hagrid's letter - saying something about the beautiful scenery - which was holding a strange amethyst pendant, embedded on a gold plate, hanging from a thin and equally gold chain that fell quietly into his open palm. The chain felt light but incredibly strong. Without thinking, Harry slipped it over his head and felt its cold metal bounce uneasily against his bare chest, finally settling into a curve of muscle and bone just below his throat. The note said nothing of what it was for and Harry knew he should be nervous, especially as it came from Hagrid, but did not take it off. 

Before he reached for Ron's present - big and lumpy looking - he grabbed the robe Draco had left and pulled it over his shoulders to cover the naked skin and warm his legs, knotting the long strap of matching silk around his waist. The birthday gift turned out to be an extremely soft, green (with the other colours of the rainbow running through) Weasley sweater. It was wrapped around a new pack of fire-proof Exploding Snap cards, several Chocolate Frogs and a box of Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans, "safe" Fred and George Weasley merchandise, and some small items from Quality Quidditch Supply to update his Broomstick Servicing Kit. Ron's letter said his mother had insisted upon the sweater, since she was sure the air was getting cooler and that Harry was a "growing boy" who needs to be regularly stocked with new clothes. Ron had been clearly amused by this. 

Harry was eternally grateful for all of it. 

As he was sweeping the pile of very nice and somewhat more mature than previous birthday gifts to the side so he could get out of bed to relieve himself, Draco materialized in the doorway and stepped into the chamber. The candles in the sconces above the door intensified in brightness, giving light to the sitting area of the room and swathe. He was wielding a tray deftly in his hands, not even looking at Harry as he set it down on the coffee table and said, "Care to sit with me?" 

Harry mutely got out of the bed, stretched as much as he dared, then pointed to the bathroom. Draco, having already seated himself in one of the chairs, nodded absently at Harry, sipping tea from a cup, and raised a copy of the _Daily Prophet_ in front of him after he put a simple warming charm on the food. He was still reading when Harry emerged from the toilet and continued until Harry settled himself onto the couch. 

"It's a good thing you washed last night or I would have made you stay in there all morning," said Draco caustically, lowering the paper. His eyes were glittering and Harry reached for the plate of flat cakes and sausage, ignoring the other boy trying to get a rise out of him. 

_Oh, no_, Harry mused to himself as he draped the cakes in syrup. _Not this early and not today_. Even if made at the hands of an enemy, this would be the best birthday breakfast he'd ever had - he could already tell, savouring the flavours surging upon his tongue. It would surpass even that of the previous year's candies and treats - and definitely all other years - and he intended to enjoy what little of it he could. 

Draco, whether he sensed this feeling or not, let him dine in silence, returning to his newspaper and drinking his tea. A comfortable - as comfortable as one can get in such a situation, Harry understood completely - silence fell over them, broken only by the turn of a page or the gulping of blessed orange juice down an appreciative throat. He sighed when he finished the stack and several links, returning the plate to its tray. 

The blond boy folded his newspaper and set it in his lap, extending his legs and wiggling his toes in the carpet under the table. He took a long swallow of his tea, draining the cup, then cradled it in his hands a moment or two, almost lovingly, before setting it on the coffee table. Harry considered him composedly, not ready to make the first move. 

But Draco expected this, he knew, and didn't care how long it took him until he spoke. He could sit there all day, each was well aware, and not say a word. The blond would also not be perturbed in the least by this, save for a likely crick in his neck and maybe a bit of lightheadedness when he finally relieved himself from Harry's presence, but none of this really mattered. Sitting around in silence, that is to say, and doing absolutely nothing. It was not as if time was a problem anymore. 

"Do you see this, Harry?" Draco asked finally, waving the folded _Daily Prophet_ at him so he could see nothing but a blur of black, white, and gray. "Do you know what's on the front page?" 

"No," said Harry, but he could guess. 

Draco's eyes positively sparkled with delight. He opened his hands and thrust his arms forward so Harry could clearly read the minute bylines at the bottom of the newspaper, if he was looking there, besides the middle of the front page. 

"_Nothing. _" 

There was silence and Draco drew back, relaxing into his chair with an air of smugness wafting pungently from his small, pale body. "Absolutely nothing, Potter." He looked very pleased with himself. "The wizarding world has no idea of your current situation and by the way they're talking" - he glanced at the paper - "they won't care. They seem _much_ more interested in Ludo Bagman's little excursion back into Quidditch to celebrate the 'wonder' and 'sensational aspects' of the sport." A sneer tugged at his lips. "Nothing left in his Gringotts account. Money squandering fool - always has been, Father says. Seems he got right back in the rut of things again." 

"Seems so," Harry answered as calmly and as casually as he possibly could. 

Draco's grin appeared for a moment then disappeared as he stared at Harry. He looked as if he was a predator stalking his prey in the middle of his own cave, where the poor wretch could not escape; just cowered, quavering in a corner or flitting around the enclosure awaiting eminent death. . . . Like a snake watching the mouse run frenziedly around the cage, scratching futilely at the glass for minutes, hours, _days_ on end until the serpent struck with such abruptness that the heart of even the most enlightened and fearless soul might skip a beat. 

Harry sighed and scratched at his neck nervously, feeling the tension rise in the room like an oven, and settled back a little bit. _He_ wanted to cower under Malfoy's ravenous gaze, but couldn't bring himself to do it. He pondered the implications of such an action. Mockery, spite, mirth, contempt, but perhaps no torture because he was so pathetic - and that might be all right, if it were not for the repercussion of thoughts on his suicide still lengthening its spidery legs through his brain and seeping into his veins, releasing an unstoppable epidemic of emptiness into his body. 

"So, what did Granger and Weasley have to say?" Draco smiled innocently. 

"Not much," replied Harry, very vaguely. 

"Oh, come now, Potter, we know that's not completely true. I know they're right duffers sometimes, but they have _some_ substance, don't they?" He leaned forward and picked up his teacup again, which was now steaming; it had magically refilled. Harry noticed his plate was full of food again and his stomach lurched slightly. "What did Granger and the Weasley say in their letters?" 

"Hermione wants me to come see her before we . . . s - she goes to the Burrow." 

"Ah, I see," said Draco, quirking an amused eyebrow at Harry's sudden distress. He finally realized what his captivity meant. "Hermione's taken a liking for Quidditch players, hasn't she? Perhaps she'll go after me next, once she's run her way through you." 

Suddenly Malfoy was on his feet in a blur of silver-gold and black and pointing at Harry's chest before Harry could answer him loudly, and scathingly. 

"What is _that_?" he hissed through gritted teeth 

Shocked and fuming, Harry stared at him for a moment, then looked down. Hagrid's pendant had caught the light and was happily twinkling against his chest. "It's - it's - Hagrid -" 

"What the _hell_ is it?" Malfoy's face was no longer amused. 

"I don't know!" Harry cried shrilly, alarmed and shrinking back from the fierce glare set upon him. He clutched the pendant against his chest, his only relief in this altercation being that Malfoy was on the other side of the coffee table. 

"Give it to me." Draco held out an upturned palm, gesturing that he wanted it handed over _now_. When Harry didn't move to take it off, truly too startled to do it, Draco beckoned with his finger, as if asking Harry to get up, and muttered a few words so quietly that the black-haired boy wasn't sure if even Malfoy could hear them. 

With a start, he felt the metal of the tiny chain links break apart and the pendant moved forward, sliding away from his throat and pulling itself from his protective hand. The broken chain followed suit, then came back together perfectly in front of his eyes. The necklace floated in the air to Malfoy who didn't touch it, but brought it very close to his face to inspect it. 

"You said Hagrid gave this to you?" Draco was still narrowing his eyes at the pendant. 

"Yes," Harry said in a hoarse voice, rubbing the spot where the necklace had lain. _What sort of magic was that?_ he wondered to himself, knowing the answer was dark. 

"Anything else I should know about like this?" 

"I . . . I don't think so, but -" 

"You don't _think_ so?" Draco asked sharply, but seemed to believe him, scrutinizing the necklace from a good distance away. "I am confiscating this, Potter." He sounded remarkably like one of the professors at Hogwarts, perhaps Minerva McGonagall or more likely Severus Snape. 

The pendant floated to Draco's hip and dropped into a pocket which stretched open and closed by its own accord to accommodate. Draco patted his robes smartly, but Harry's discomfort - while not voiced - still lingered. For this, Harry would never understand Draco Malfoy. The boy could never once look his way and yet his heart would still grow cold just looking at _him_, knowing and not knowing what the ice prince carried inside. 

"I will return later," said Malfoy, turning his attention back to Harry. "You will write two letters to the Grangers and the Weasleys explaining that you cannot see them this summer. Do not say anything that would incriminate us; short and sweet, Harry, as they say. Say Dumbledore expects you under the _Dursleys_ protection. That's true, isn't it? Don't want to lie, do we?" 

"Er -" Harry had no idea what to say. 

"Write the letters to the Mudblood and the Weasel, Harry, as soon as possible. Which means _now_, understand? I, or, if I find I'm too bored with you too return, someone else will collect them shortly. You know the rules at which we are playing and it will do best for you if you adhere to them." Malfoy glared sourly at Harry, whose anger and confusion were etched clearly across his face. 

"The Weasleys, Hermione - they'll never . . . the pendant . . . where is Hedwig?" Harry rambled, wringing his hands nervously and also trying to keep them from wrapping around Draco's long pale throat. "Where am _I_? Am I -" 

"Happy Birthday, Harry," said Draco coldly, his eyes dark. That said, he stormed from the room and Harry fell heavily onto the couch with a moan. 

  



End file.
